Baptized "Flugt" - the flight, in Danish -, it has just been inaugurated in Oksbøl, a small town on the west coast of the Scandinavian country, one of the states in Europe with the hardest line in terms of immigration.

In what was once the camp hospital to which a modern wing has been added, in the middle of personal effects - from a tent to a teddy bear - the exhibition traces the individual journeys of the exiles.

The story, at the origin of the place, of the German refugees at the fall of Nazism, but also of those who found refuge in Denmark to flee war and oppression.

"We want to tell the story, behind the numbers, of real people," museum director Claus Kjeld Jensen told AFP.

Photos exhibited at the new museum dedicated to exiles, June 25, 2022 in Oksbøl, Denmark John Randeris Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Archives

Here, at the twilight of the 1939-1945 war, tens of thousands of Germans fleeing the advancing Red Army found refuge on these military grounds of moors and beaches by the North Sea.

Oksbøl had then become in a few weeks the fifth largest city in Denmark in terms of population.

In the camp, operational from 1945 to 1949, behind barbed wire there were schools, a theater and a workshop.

Apart from the two hospital buildings and a cemetery hidden by a dense forest, there remained few traces of this past that the museum comes to resuscitate.

“There is this period in the history of the world which took place right here, where we are. But there is also the situation today”, underlines Kjeld Jensen.

Photos exhibited at the new museum dedicated to exiles, June 25, 2022 in Oksbøl, Denmark John Randeris Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Archives

"We have many more refugees in the world than we had at the end of World War II. So I guess the question is more relevant than ever," the curator says.

"Sanctuary"

Inaugurated on Saturday by the Queen of Denmark Margrethe II and the German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, the museum cost a total of 16 million euros, including 1.5 brought by Berlin.

"Nobody could have thought that it would be so sadly topical to talk about refugees and exile," said the 82-year-old monarch.

Danish Queen Margrethe II (l) and German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck (2nd l) attend the inauguration of the new museum dedicated to exiles, on June 25, 2022 in Oksbøl, Denmark James Brooks AFP

At the end of 2021, the world had nearly 90 million uprooted people - refugees and internally displaced people - according to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a new movement on the continent, with at least 12 million people having left their homes, according to the UN.

The new museum was designed by world-renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, who recently signed Google's new headquarters in Silicon Valley.

The wooden frames of the new museum dedicated to exiles designed by Danish architect Bajarke Ingels, on June 25, 2022 in Oksbøl, Denmark John Randeris Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Archives

"When we started this project, we thought it was a thing of the past for Western Europe," he said at the inauguration.

Inside his work, imposing wooden frames stretch skyward, creating a large open foyer from which visitors explore the exhibits.

A place designed as "an oasis or a sanctuary that opens towards the forest", according to its designer.

"That's in a way what the refugees have hopefully found here – sanctuary and a glimpse of a brighter future."

For some, the current policy of Denmark vis-à-vis refugees does not fit well with the philosophy of the museum.

In recent years, governments on both the right and left have pursued one of the strictest migration policies in Europe.

An exhibition room in the new museum dedicated to exiles, on June 25, 2022 in Oksbøl, Denmark John Randeris Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Archives

Denmark has thus become the first country in the European Union to re-examine the cases of several hundred Syrians from Damascus who have obtained asylum, judging that the situation allows them to return home.

Danish migration policies "are very politically oriented and we hope, of course, that there will be a way to change that", said UNHCR representative Henrik Nordentoft.

© 2022 AFP