Airborne museum Oosterbeek

Pegasus

This was on my list for a long time, always passing by but never made a stop to visit the museum. But TB ‘s are curious and they wanted to see some more of my surrounding. So I decided after checking their interests to go to this museum. And because of the location we needed to go by car, so it was not possible to invite a lot of people. (sorry for those who wanted to join, it is not because of you, but only the space in the car!)  

The Battle for Arnhem 1944, this museum is located on a historic place. Called Oosterbeek. During the war this area was the headquarter of Major-general R.E. Urquhart. The villa now is a museum which is newly opened after the big renovation.

The museum will show you a collection of guns and a lot of historical photos from the battle area.

Entering the museum you buy your tickets in the shop. The entrance is in the back of the building on the left side. Adults pay 8 euro pp, students 7 euro, children 13/18 year pay 5 euro.

There are elevators in the building, so people who are not able to walk the stairs can use these elevators. In the first room you will see a short movie what Market Garden is about.  Then they will lead you through the building and showing all kinds of equipment and medals. After walking around the upper floor, you have to go down in the basement. There they show the public how the room in the basement was used.  Further down you will enter a whole new part of the museum, and it has a lot of special effects. Like you are in the middle of a real battle.  For people who experienced the war for real this might be a bit of a shock. For small children it can also be a bit freighting because of the darkness the noise and the pictures. But it is very impressive to see.

For coffee you can put a coin in the machine, but it is not that nice. We went to Hotel Klein Hartenstein next to the museum, and the coffee was good. After resting a while we wanted to see some more and decided to go to the war cemetery. It is not very far from the museum, but not possible to go by bus. So if you want to go there it is better to have your car with you.

We found the cemetery driving back towards Arnhem on the left of the main road.  Arriving at the cemetery, we noticed that we were not the only ones. The people who guard  the cemetery are able to tell you very interesting things about the graves. So it is not just visiting the graves, but you will hear a lot of stories. And very sad ones.

The graves next to the entrance you will find the Polish graves. These are the first people who died in the battle in Driel. They really had a hard time there.  On the graves you can find different ,inscriptions. For example a kind of tree, they called it  in dutch “de verkenners” in fact the people in the frontline to check if there are enemies or dangerous situations. These people where caught in a trap, and a lot of them died. The people who have died are all burried in a Flag, or in their Parachute.

If it is a sunny day, it is very interesting to visit this museum and war cemetery. In the summer you can also take guided tours for a long walk in the surrounding of Oosterbeek.

I really thought it was worth visiting.  Today in the newspaper they mentioned this museum. It has won a price for interactive communication.