"I was twenty years old in 1945 in Bastogne" - temporary exhibition (Belgium)

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Historical information

Bastogne, an important crossroads, was defended tenaciously by paratroopers of the 101st US Airborne Division and a unit of the 10th Armored Division. Von Manteuffel decided to cut the main roads leading into the town and to bypass it to the north and south, ordering his 2. Panzer to press on towards the River Meuse. But on Christmas eve, the spearhead of the 5th Panzer Army was suddenly stopped and annihilated within sight of Dinant. Realising that the 5th Panzer Army would not cross the River Meuse, the German High Command decided to take Bastogne at any cost. The day after Christmas, a column of the 4th Armored Division charged towards Bastogne and in Assenois succeeded in breaking the German siege of the city.

The name of the exhibition is based on another exhibition named "I was twenty years old in 1945" about all aspects of WW2 in whole Belgium and around the world, the original exhibition took place in Brussels and this "variant" presented here in Bastogne.

"Wonderfully preceded in 1995 by "I was 20 in 45", this exhibition puts into light one of the most tragic events which marked and ended the history of the Second World War: the Battle of the Bulge. Based on the testimonies of those who enabled us to state the term freedom in the present and based on the life stories of the actors of this last burst of Nazism before the victory of our democratic values, this exhibition offers a resolutely human lighting of the conflict. It proposes to the visitors to discover, from the inside, the feelings of fear and anxiety, the strategic developments, the life which is organized under the occupation, the resistance... and this, from the respective point of view of each implied camp, civil or soldiers. A unique gathering of objects and documents coming from the whole world is there to support the testimony without precedent".

Location information

The temporary exhibition is located in Bastogne in the Old Seminar on Place Saint Pierre next to the museum "En Piconrue" (Belgium),