Museum forced to cover up Nazi emblem after visitors offended

Paul Whitehouse

A VILLAGE museum which mounted a display of wartime artefacts for an anniversary exhibition has been forced to cover up Nazi memorabilia after offending visitors.

Cawthorne Jubilee Museum in Barnsley mounted a dual exhibition to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and the role the village and its residents played in the Second World War.

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But it has been plunged into controversy because of the use of a large red banner with the Nazi swastika emblem, liberated by a soldier from the Olympic stadium in Berlin during 1945 and donated to the museum decades ago.

Less than 24 hours before the museum opened to the public a decision was made to cover the swastika part of the trophy with a smaller Union flag.

Museum chairman Peter Kilner said the committee acted because of complaints from visitors who had seen the flag in place before the public were allowed in.

Mr Kilner said: “We had one or two people objecting to the swastika being displayed and we are not in the position of upsetting people.

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“If it was upsetting people, we thought it would be better covered up. One or two of us said ‘lets cover it up and leave it at that’.

“Visitors have been happy and the exhibition is a great success.”

The decision has divided opinion, however, with others in the community believing it should have been shown unobscured, because it was a legitimate piece of the village’s history which symbolised the defeat of fascism.

Museum president Barry Jackson said that despite the cover-up, he directed interested visitors towards the flag, which along with a large Union flag and a painting of a German fighter being shot down in a dog-fight, forms the entrance to the wartime exhibition.

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One complaint was that displaying the flag showed a lack of respect to those named on the village war memorial, he said.

It was donated to the museum decades ago by Louis Jagger, a villager who served with a tank regiment in the battle through Europe in the closing stages of the war. His unit took part in the victory parade in Berlin and during that period he acquired the flag, which he subsequently donated to the museum.

It had never been put on display and remained largely forgotten in a storage box until it was unearthed by volunteers for the current exhibition.

By the time the objections were raised, it was too late to remove it from the display so the alternative of censoring the Nazi symbol was suggested.

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One visitor to the exhibition said: “I was surprised to see the flag covered up in the way that it was, it looked a bit odd.

“It is easy to move the Union Jack to see what’s underneath. I don’t think displaying that should be an embarrassment, someone brought it back after fighting to defeat the Nazis, after all.”

The Jubilee Museum has been run by the community in Cawthorne since the building was bought from the Spencer family who lived in nearby Cannon Hall in the early 1950s.

It is run by a committee of volunteers and its usual exhibits include a pair of boots which were struck by lightning and a two-headed calf.

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