Childhoods in a world at war

This exhibition is the result of two years of team research work within the European Rememchild. The project is a consortium of experts and professionals from European universities, foundations, memorials and museums: UNED, URJC, EUROM, Maison d’Izieu, Fondazione Campo Fossoli, EuroClio, ICMEMO-HRI and the Gernika Peace Museum.

It is complemented by several pieces of different origins integrated into the exhibition, seven arpilleras on view in the exhibition belong to the Conflict Textiles Northern Ireland collection and 33 artworks of the artist J.C. Cubino, who through these dozens of imperfect, worn-out, broken toys – subsequently transformed into something that makes us think and reflect – wishes to keep wars out of the reach of children.

This temporary exhibition, entitled Childhoods in a World at War, provides an overview of the experiences of children during the Second World War, while at the same time demonstrating the importance of peace for the present and the future through stories and examples from the recent past. From 1939 to 1945, millions of children experienced a radical transformation of their daily lives, lived with the war on a daily basis, tried to survive its horrors and took on responsibilities that did not correspond to their age.

These are the topics covered in the exhibition:
1. Remaining a child? Childhood in everyday life
2. Education in the face of barbarism
3. Dig for victory. Child labour in all its forms
4. Bombardment, siege and destruction
5. Resisters and combatants
6. Persecution, Deportation and Extermination
7. Liberation and post-war
8. Why was it a world war?
9. These are the resources of war
10. Wars that neither begin nor end