The Hague Convention is a really good plan but how do you execute it in reality? It says, avoid these cultural sites. Eisenhower inspect German collections stored in the Merkers mine. National Records and Archives Administration If you decide it needs to be destroyed, you’re going to answer to me.
But often times it just wasn’t possible, there was still this doctrine of military necessity that if something had to go it had to go.īut Eisenhower put out this famous letter to his commanders on the eve of the invasion of Italy basically saying, yes, there may be military necessity but when you come across cultural heritage, you better be sure it’s a military necessity and not just laziness or personal convenience on your part. And they also had the teams that would go out and advise the commanders and say, this is an important cathedral in the center of town, let’s try to avoid it. They would try to avoid them, but of course, they didn’t have nearly as sophisticated targeting systems as we do today. They made maps to try and let the allied bombers know where some of these important places were. When they decided, just prior to the invasion of Italy, that they would institute these Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives teams in the middle of the war, some of the other allied countries did this as well.
They completed de-installed the Louvre.It was protected, first of all, by the cultural heritage professionals who cared for those things every day and a lot of people risked their lives to hide these things from the Nazis, especially the sort of “degenerate” art that were trying to destroy. In Italy for instance, they built a brick wall around the statue of David. They were moved to underground storage locations and this was all throughout Europe. Those are the people who are going to do an emergency plan, do a risk assessment, figure out what will we do if this collection is at risk, or if there is a disaster.ĭuring World War II, a lot of collections were hidden away. The very first line of defense for collections and monuments and historic places is the people that work there every day. How did that team from Civil Affairs manage to do that? The 1954 Hague Convention helped create international guidelines for handling cultural property during armed conflict but it took the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives of WWII, who helped save some of Europe’s most iconic artifacts, as a model. But Wegener says recent experiences in Libya, Syria and now Mali show how much work there is left to do. Many, though not all of the objects, have since been recovered and the museum reopened in 2009. Former director general of Iraqi museums, Donny George Youkhanna, says ”Every single item that was lost is a great loss for humanity.” He told Smithsonian magazine, ”It is the only museum in the world where you can trace the earliest development of human culture-technology, agriculture, art, language and writing-in just one place.”
Now at the Smithsonian as a cultural heritage preservation specialist, Wegener’s played a critical role in the recovery of the National Museum of Iraq after devastating looting took place there during the war in 2003.Īn estimated 15,000 items were stolen and the collection was in disarray. A unit preparing to deploy to the Horn of Africa, for example, received a special tour at the African Art Museum. Committee of the Blue Shield, Wegener covers everything from material science to museum organization to international law and often calls on Smithsonian curators and collections to help impress upon the soldiers the importance of the shared cultural items she calls touchstones. Photo by Elnaz Sarbar, courtesy of WikimediaĪfter serving in the Army Reserve for 21 years, and working at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts as a curator, Corine Wegener now travels the country training soldiers in cultural heritage preservation. Organizations like the Committee of the Blue Shield help protect such sites.
Sites like Iran’s Persepolis are on world heritage lists, but that won’t spare them from harm during armed conflict.
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