Madlyn Fafard,: World War 2 Museum tucked away in New England from the MetroWest Daily News, Framingham/Natick surrounding towns, Massachusetts

music, thoughts, books, dreams, more

Just my world of dreams, music and thoughts. Author of two books, one a novel of Love stories set in Framingham, Mass, Secrets of the Heart the 2nd book an autobiography of growing up in Framingham, Mass. Small Town America, Framingham My generation was the first teenage generation, that was when the word was coined. Ours was the generation that started cruising through town and to the drive in theater and drive in restaurant. In our area, Ernie Kampersal,from Holliston, drove his bucking car through town, picking up girls. It rose in the air, like a stallion! We went to the soda shops and played the juke boxes. It was a different town, a different time, and it belonged to us!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

World War 2 Museum tucked away in New England from the MetroWest Daily News, Framingham/Natick surrounding towns, Massachusetts

Who would have dreamed this museum would be hidden in a New England town?
Natick exhibit: Hitler, 'the failed artist'

Gary Gresh, development officer at the World War II Museum in Natick, leans on a display case which contains Adolf Hitler's watercolor paint set. Daily News Staff Photo/Art Illman

Posted Feb. 27, 2014 @ 12:01 am

By Chris Bergeron

Daily News Staff

NATICK - The delicate watercolor of the farmer's market at St. Peter's Church in Munich was painted with deft brushstrokes by the same hand that unleashed the Final Solution.

Completed by an aspiring German artist named Adolf Hitler after his military service, the painting is one of the centerpieces of a small but powerful exhibition at the Museum of World War II in Natick that evokes Nazi attitudes toward art.

Organized by museum founder and director, Kenneth W. Rendell, "The Failed Artist, Degenerate Art and the Monument Men'' showcases nearly 20 rare artifacts mostly connected to Hitler and his inner circle. The artifacts reveal the Nazi obsession with visual art in their heroic self-image and their attempts to stamp out the "degenerate'' art that had been sweeping Europe between the wars.

Visitors will see the contents of Hitler's art studio in Munich, including dried paints, brushes, drafting tools, sketchbooks and several watercolors that echo political theorist Hannah Arendt's description of the "banality of evil.''

In his will, Hitler left the studio's contents to his longtime housekeeper, Anny Brunner-Winter, who recovered them after a legal battle with the Bavarian government that confiscated them. The studio's contents were acquired "intact'' by Rendell for his museum.

He also acquired the watercolor of the farmer's market directly from the widow of Rudolph Hess, Germany's deputy fuhrer who spent 46 years in prison after being convicted of crimes against peace.

Introducing the show, Gary W. Gresh, director of corporate and foundation relations, said, "Hitler's watercolor set usually generates an unusual feeling from our visitors when they see something so ordinary that belonged to someone who personified evil.''

Using a few intimate artifacts, the exhibit creates jarring juxtapositions between the heroic sculptures and classical Greek and Roman art Nazi elites admired, and the ruthless malignity of the German war effort.

Viewed within the context of the entire museum which displays 7,000 artifacts, including weapons, field equipment, uniforms and propaganda posters, documents and a Sherman tank, the exhibit provides a small but chilling look into the psyche of Hitler and his top leaders such as Hermann Goering who purported to admire classical art while masterminding a war and systematic genocide of European Jews that ultimately cost 60 million and six million lives, respectively.

"Masterpieces make me feel alive,'' said Goering, Hitler's top lieutenant, according to the exhibit's wall text.

Visitors will see Goering's signed personal copy of images of Leonardo da Vinci's greatest works, bound in white vellum.

Several other objects express Hitler's loathing of "degenerate'' or abstract art that was seen as subverting the Nazi ideal of Aryan racial supremacy or German war efforts.