Exhibition in Maribor presents joint struggle against Nazism
Maribor - An exhibition on the joint struggle of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union against Nazism during the Second World War will open on Thursday at the Maribor International Research Centre for Second World War in cooperation with the Moscow Museum of the Great Patriotic War.
The international exhibition project Second Front highlights the little-known facts of the war history related to the contribution of the Western Allies to the common victory over Nazism, the organisers said.
The exhibition presents on 26 banners the main stages of the forming of the anti-Hitler coalition, including the landing of allied troops in Western Europe and the provision of supplies under Lend-Lease.
It presents the statistics of military equipment distributions to the USSR in 1941-1945, photographs and documents about the landing operation of the allied forces in the German-occupied Normandy on June 6 1944, the largest landing operation of the Second World War, which involved 10,440 aircraft and 6,330 ships.
Also showcased will be photographs and documents of Admiral Nikolai Kharlamov, who played a decisive role in the creation and conduct of Arctic convoys. He was an official observer from the USSR for the landing in Normandy and a key figure in negotiations with the British allies on the launching of the Second Front in Europe.
The exhibition also highlights the meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River in Germany in April 1945, and the Victory Parade in Berlin on September 7 1945, the last joint parade of the Red Army and the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition.
The partners of the exhibition are the Shannolt Museum of Military Aviation (USA) and the National Museum of Military History (Luxembourg).
The Maribor centre will also organise between 25 August and 8 September its biggest and most important international event this year, as the Memory Train going from Berlin to Bergen Belsen arrives in Maribor on 8 September.
The project will mark 80 years since the arrival of the first war prisoners to the Nazi concentration camp Stalag XVIII-D and the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials.
President Borut Pahor is the honorary sponsor of the project.