Guernsey, German Occupation Museum Review

The German Occupation Museum in Guernsey is one of only two in the island. It was set up in the 1960s by owner-director Richard Heaume, based on the collection of Occupation artefacts he collected as a schoolboy. This museum has grown over the years, and now provides a holistic view of the Occupation. While it is heavy on the German objects from the Occupation, as are all Occupation museums in the Channel Islands, it also provides displays on ordinary islanders, and the victims of Nazism including the slave and forced foreign workers, the deportees who were sent to German internment camps, the political prisoners sent to prison and labour camps for resistance activities, and other brave islanders who stood out during the Occupation. The museum boasts a fantastic collection of objects from the Occupation and Liberation, and is surprisingly moving in places, especially the 'Liberation Room'. The musem has cheap entry fees and a very cheap coffee room. The friendly owner, Richard Heaume, is always there, ready to share stories of the Occupation with visitors, when asked. This is a low-tech, low-budget museum, and deliberately so - but for all that, I adore it and visit it every time I am in Guernsey - which is several times a year.