Imagine probing a secret passage hidden by a bookcase, a portal into the dark cramped annex where diarist Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. Now, imagine traveling to New Orleans to do it.
That's just part of the program in store for a new wing of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans that's set to open in November. The Liberation Pavilion will be the final permanent exhibit hall to be added to the museum, one focused on highlighting some of the enduring impacts of the last global military conflict.
The three-story pavilion will have immersive exhibits such as the re-creation of the Anne Frank space on its first floor as well as a small chapel and a panoramic theater with personal testimonies from Holocaust survivors and the U.S. forces that liberated them.
The second floor will showcase the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the emergence of the U.S. as a world "superpower," movements for social change and civil rights, new technological innovations and the war's impact on foreign policy.
A third floor is devoted to a multimedia theater show depicting what was at stake during World War II and the meaning of Allied victory.
A rendering shows a re-creation of the space where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. Photo Credit: Courtesy of The National WWII Museum
Together, the galleries are dedicated to WWII service members "to preserve their stories and their legacies for future generations, so that [the public] will understand not just the impact of the largest war in world history, but also its relevance today," said Mike Bell, executive director of the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the museum.
Some of the exhibits, such as the Anne Frank installation, target school-age groups. "She was the age that many of our visitors are, and we're trying to reach the youngest possible crowd with the significance of WWII," said senior historian Rob Citino.
The new museum wing will open Nov. 3 preceded by a week of festivities. Among the honorees will be some of the last surviving U.S. service members from WWII, Bell said.
The Pavilion will have an exhibit on the "Monuments Men," the military group that recovered art stolen by Nazis during the war. Photo Credit: Courtesy of The National WWII Museum
Another immersive exhibit on Floor 1 deals with European art treasures stolen by the Nazis. The high stakes hunt for masterpieces was dramatized in the 2014 movie "Monuments Men," and the new pavilion re-creates a salt mine in the Austrian Alps where much of the loot was stashed.
Opened in 2000 as the National D-Day Museum, the campus in the city's Central Business District has added an extra dimension to New Orleans tourism long focused on Mardi Gras, beignets and jazz music. It hosted 580,000 visitors in 2022.
Citino said the Anne Frank kitchen in the annex will be outfitted with replicas of objects seen in the Frank house and equipped with a projector system that will fill the room with sounds and images.
"You'll be hearing voices, you'll be seeing images on the wall," said Citino, adding that visitors will hear portions of Frank's diary, recorded by an actress. "You're going to be hearing whispers. We want our visitors to get some sense of the experience, the claustrophobia."
"When you go to Amsterdam, it's very closed in. You can't believe there were that many people living in that space," he said.
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Corrections: The National D-Day Museum opened in 2000. A prior version of this report had the incorrect year. The new museum wing will open Nov. 3, preceded by a week of festivities. A prior version of this report incorrectly said festivities would follow the opening.