Mons - 50° 27' 59" N 03 34' 15" E

By Kate and Sean -


We spent a couple of nights in Mons, Belguim.  The weather was chilly and rainy so we decided museums were the order of the day.  We started with the Mons Memorial Museum - and managed to spend the whole day there!  The museum tracks the history of Mons but pays special attention to the impact of the two world wars on the inhabitants and the city.  

The collection of artefacts and stories was fascinating and presented the complexities of living under occupation extremely well.  It was a little confronting seeing photos of tanks rolling through the square where we had enjoyed a beer the evening before. And just how awful to have a young soldier be billeted in your home for a year or so but have to consider him the enemy. 

Sitting at a cafe in the town square ...
Same town square seventy years earlier

Some of the topics were really challenging ... even confronting.

Imagine being labelled an enemy collaborator ... even if it was the only way you could feed your family.  Or, how would you feel if your lifelong profession - as a baker, farmer, shopkeeper, bricklayer, carpenter - was advantageous to the occupiers?  And the women who had their heads shaved for prostituting themselves despite options being very limited - sleep with an occupying solider or allow you and your children to starve.  

It was an excellent museum, a great town and need we mention the beer?!!

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