Understanding the Imperial War Museum and The Blitz



Reading the letters from the Blitz and visiting the Imperial War Museum gave me a different outlook on World War II and London during this time. These experiences gave me a more human understanding of life at this time.

At the Imperial War Museum, I was reminded of how real the war was for everyone alive at the time by seeing artifacts that people once wore, maps that real people once wrote on, equipment people once used and more. With how separated we are, not only as a generation that wasn’t alive during the war, but also as Americans who did not have fighting on our soil, it is sometimes difficult to visualize those events. Being in London and seeing buildings that are still damaged from the Blitz and visiting places like the Imperial War Museum help with that visualization and understanding.

In addition to seeing items in a museum, the letters that we read also helped to add a human understanding to the events. Reading about people dying and bodies being pulled from the rubble was somehow surprising to me, even when I knew how deadly the Blitz was for Londoners. It adds a more personal dimension when you learn the stories of individuals who experienced it firsthand. One particular quote that stuck with me from the reading for that week is this: “Now when I see people in films or on TV falling out of windows with their clothes on fire I wonder how many like me remember that it really did happen during the Blitz. It will stay with me forever.” One way I related this to my own experience, or my experience as an American, is to compare it to 9/11. Just as the horrors of 9/11 changed and shaped New Yorkers and Americans, so did the trauma of living through the Blitz remain with an entire generation of Londoners and British people.

All in all, my experience being in London, visiting the Imperial War Museum, and reading the letters of people who survived the Blitz I have a better and more human understanding of what it was like to live through that challenging time.

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