IWM Blog

  • An RAF football match played in Italy between two teams of airmen. Mount Vesuvius is visible in the distance behind the goal made of camouflage netting.
    © IWM CNA 2322
    Blog: Photography

    IWM and me - Exploring IWM photographs from the Second World War

    Jonnie Bayes, 28 February 2022
    In this blog, I provide an insight into contributing to Imperial War Museums’ War and Conflict Subject Specialist Network, through the government funded Kickstart Scheme. I share my reflections on exploring IWM's photography collection, and some tips you might find useful for researching the IWM Collections webpage.
  • Students from Eden Girls Waltham Forest interview one of the community participants.
    Students from Eden Girls Waltham Forest interview one of the community participants. Image courtesy of British Future.
    Blog: Conflict since 1945

    Remember Together – how history can unite as well as divide us: Part Two

    Guest author: Steve Ballinger, British Future , 28 February 2022
    Britain’s history, and the ways in which we commemorate it today, is often presented as a battleground. Yet the findings from a pilot project conducted with two secondary schools, featured in Part One of this blog post in 2021, offers a possible route through these choppy waters. Steve Ballinger, Director of Communications at British Future, shares findings from the Remember Together project.
  • Visitors exploring the Second World War exhibition
    © IWM
    Blog

    IWM and me – reflecting on my kickstart journey so far

    Oliver Scurrah, 15 February 2022
    In this blog, I provide an insight into working alongside Imperial War Museums’ Second World War and Holocaust Partnerships Programme through the government funded Kickstart Scheme. I offer a detailed account of my visit to the recently opened Second World War and the Holocaust Galleries at IWM London – and consider my next steps once my time with this programme is over.
  • Supermarine Spitfire Mark IIA, P7895 'RN-N', of No 72 Squadron, based at Acklington, Northumberland, in flight over the coast, piloted by Flight Lieutenant R Deacon Elliot, April 1941.
    © IWM TR 139
    Blog

    Myth, cultural memory and film: A study of Second World War aircraft in cinema

    Guest author: Adam Kilgour, Multimedia Journalism graduate, 31 January 2022
    How would you respond if you were to be asked about aeroplanes in the Second World War? Perhaps by referring to a war film like The Dam Busters? Adam Kilgour, a recent Multimedia Journalism graduate volunteering with the IWM War Memorial Register, shares insights from his thesis looking at the Second World War narratives told in film.
  • Red jumper belonging to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.
    © IWM (EPH 7249)
    Blog: Holocaust

    A personal story from the Holocaust

    Guest author: Clare Lawlor, 30 December 2021
    Clare Lawlor, from IWM’s Public Engagement and Learning team, shares the story of a red jumper that makes up part of the new Holocaust Galleries at IWM London. She explains what this simple artefact can tell us about a young woman’s experiences during the Holocaust.
  • Tanks disembark at the port of Oslo
    Blog

    One Story, Different Voices: the Norwegian Campaign, 1940

    Guest author: Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, 1 December 2021
    Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of neutral Denmark and Norway, took place between April 9 and June 10, 1940. Weserübung was referred to as “the military measures for the protection of the neutrality of Denmark and Norway”. Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, journalist and historian, shares some of her research into how German newspapers during the Second World War reported the Norwegian campaign in 1940.
  • Still from trailer for COI 75: Armed Forces training and recruitment films
    Still from trailer for COI 75: Armed Forces training and recruitment films
    Blog: Cold War

    COI 75: Armed Forces training and recruitment films

    Michelle Kirby, 26 October 2021
    Travel the world and take a trip back in time with this colourful trailer highlighting rarely seen and oft-sun-soaked Central Office of Information films, newly digitised thanks to IWMs five-year preservation project Digital Futures. Shared across The National Archives and the British Film Institute’s social media platforms, as well as IWM's digital platforms, this trailer is part of this year's cross-collections collaborative project ‘COI 75’ (#COI75, #Collections United).
  • IWM HU 8967 A Jewish woman is forced to sweep the streets of Riga, Latvia, after its fall to the Germans, 22 August 1941. From late July, Jews in Latvia were ordered to wear a Star of David on their chest.
    IWM HU 8967
    Blog: Holocaust

    Operation Barbarossa: the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941 - Part Two

    Guest Author: Lauren Willmott, 28 September 2021
    Eighty years ago this year, on 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). The aim was to win Lebensraum ('living space') in the East, and was to be a ‘war of annihilation’ targeting the Jews and Roma living there. By the end of 1942, at least 1.1 million Jewish men, women and children had been murdered in mass shootings. IWM Curator Lauren Willmott shares details about how these events are represented in the new Holocaust Galleries at IWM London.
  • A Panzerbefehlswagen Ausf H (Panzer III) command tank and motorcycles of General Guderian's 2nd Panzer Group during Operation Barbarossa, summer 1941.
    IWM HU 111385
    Blog: Second World War

    Operation Barbarossa: the German invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941 - Part One

    Guest author: Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, 21 September 2021
    On 18 December 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union to win Lebensraum ('living space') in the East and to destroy Jewish Bolshevism. The campaign began on 22 June 1941, and caused millions of military and civilian casualties. German historian and journalist Katherine Quinlan-Flatter talks about the first few weeks of the campaign as reported in the German newspapers of the time, and its impact on German life.
  • Spitfire sculpture in the exhibition.
    Spitfire sculpture in the exhibition.
    Blog: Arts and Culture

    Art of the Second World War: Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain

    Guest Author: Anthony Padgett, 10 September 2021
    IWM is working with four partners to share art from our collections and explore different perspectives on the Second World War, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Artist Anthony Padgett worked with one of our partners, The Harris in Preston, to create a new sculpture based on the stories of local people.
  • Trench system reconstructed at CEMA, Kent. Image: James Valls
    Trench system reconstructed at CEMA, Kent. Image: James Valls
    Blog: First World War

    Centre for Experimental Military Archaeology

    Guest Author: David Flintham, 12 August 2021
    How often has anyone visiting the site of a battlefield wondered just how things would have actually looked at the time? David Flintham tells us about the work of the Centre for Experimental Military Archaeology, which reconstructs historical sites using cutting-edge technology.
  • Screenshot of a video letter. A refugee looks out over her balcony. The subtitle reads 'We are alright, in a matter of speaking'.
    Draga writes to her friend Nada in Mostar (UNT 206)
    Blog

    UNTV’s video letters

    Dr Catherine Baker, 11 August 2021
    The most distinctive films in UNTV’s collection are the ‘video letters’. As well as the many informational features that this incarnation of the UNPROFOR television unit made between May 1994 and January 1996, and a small number of interviews with UNPROFOR leaders and ‘vox pops’ with the local public also filmed for early UNTV packages, UNTV made at least 90 of these films.

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