Luxembourg is not the first country that springs to mind when one thinks of the European nations overrun by Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, but the consequences for Jewish and many non-Jewish citizens were no different than those in other states.

Eleven years after the war, a resistance museum was opened in the industrial town of Esch-sur-Alzette to commemorate the atrocities of the occupiers and the courage of the resistance fighters.

The building with bare stone facades and a large loggia does not fit into the small-scale townscape on Escher's main square, the Brillplatz.

It is precisely in this form that the museum is proof of how important it is to remember the monstrosities of the 20th century.

Luxembourg also stands for overcoming them as one of the three centers

The memory has to be kept alive in a different way than before the turn of the millennium, because fewer and fewer eyewitnesses are alive to tell younger generations firsthand.

In 2016, the city of Esch and the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture therefore decided to renovate the museum.

A terraced house off a side street has been demolished to make way for a striking extension designed by one of Luxembourg's most renowned architects, Jim Clemes.

The reopening of the museum with a new permanent exhibition tomorrow, Thursday - in the presence of the German Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth - coincides with Esch-sur-Alzette's role as European Capital of Culture 2022.

Intercultural and multilingual

Since the exhibition was first renewed in 1986, the memories of survivors have become even more valuable.

With records, publications and traveling exhibitions, the museum helps to build a bridge between the public and science.

In collaboration with the University of Luxembourg, the museum has thus become a center for research into local history and a "place of remembrance and education".

The museum's didactic approach is "cross-generational, intercultural and multilingual," explains curator Cláudia Lima.

Historical, educational and artistic projects alternate in her house.

While continuing to focus on World War II and Nazism, oppression and war, over the past decade the museum has also explored more contemporary issues such as Nelson Mandela's role in South Africa, the fate of Gypsies, refugee flows and extremism.

The museum is now a platform for political education that addresses crimes against humanity.

Accordingly, in 2020 the museum has expanded its name to Musée National de la Resistance et des Droits Humans.

A poetic look

The tripled exhibition space was redesigned by Nathalie Jacoby from Atelier NJOY.

Like Clemes' architecture, Jacoby's museography pursues a purist approach that does not want to compete with the original building.

She uses the size of the building to emotionally introduce visitors to the topics: Right at the entrance, for example, you can't miss a row of urns containing the ashes of Holocaust victims.

Impressive portraits of victims are shown in the reconstruction of a barracks in the Hinzert concentration camp.

A colloquium on the "Future of Commemoration and Remembrance" and an exhibition on the fate of Luxembourg Jews during World War II, which was shown in the Topographie des Terrors in Berlin, are considered achievements of modern remembrance culture organized by the museum.

The aesthetics of the monumental building by Laurent Schmit were retained during the conversion, which cost 8.6 million euros.

The museum should be a memorial against Nazi terror and at the same time a place of remembrance - functions that one does not want to reinterpret.

Although the extension on the Rue de l'Alzette is used for administration, workshops, exhibitions and as a side entrance for groups, Clemes has given it a powerfully poetic appearance of a very unique, evocative nature: the dark brick facade seems to burst open, as if wanting to reveal a wound .