Abstract
I had not been there for years, but it was a sunny Bank Holiday Saturday and some impulse drew us to London’s Imperial War Museum (IWM). Its reading room was a place I had frequented for research three decades ago when compiling an analysis of the work and attitudes of The Salvation Army in the Boer War (1899–1902) and the two World Wars. The museum held materials by Salvationists: diaries written in the trenches; cassette recordings (readers may remember cassettes!) made when the participants were advanced in years. One Salvationist veteran recorded his 1914 memories wearing full Salvation Army uniform for the benefit of the museum staffer attending his house!
Visitors to the IWM first see the mighty battleship guns of World War I positioned near the entrance. These (now primitive) weapons could hurl a shell some sixteen miles! The place was packed that day—family groups, sweetheart couples, toddlers and teenagers. English was only one of many languages to be heard. Lively chatter filled the air.
The museum was once the Bethlem Royal Hospital, serving patients in need of psychiatric care. How changed it is today, though some will speak of war’s madness. Our visit was to leave us feeling admiration for human courage and gratitude for self-giving. It also filled us with a horror unanticipated when we set off from south London’s leafy suburbs.
The lower floors displayed devices and artefacts of conventional warfare. Then came a replica of ‘Little Boy’, the 1945 atomic bomb used to destroy Hiroshima. We paused there a little longer, remembering the impossible choices made in wartime, choices filled with death and destruction. Eventually we reached the third floor. Before us was the entrance to a darkened, twisting series of passages. The sign banned entry to anyone under fifteen and warned visitors to put away all mobile phones and cameras. It was an exhibition commemorating the Jewish Holocaust. We entered to find the gloomy, shadowy display areas truly crowded. Yet nobody spoke. Silence, broken only by softly shuffling feet, ruled the confined spaces. It was awful. Horror upon horror. Before us were countless life-size photographs of executions and torture, potent reminders that humans can become complacent dealers in death. What were the tourists and trippers thinking? It was all I could manage not to blurt out the question. I reached for the hand of my wife, Birgitte, as slowly we moved along. I needed a gentle, loving touch amid the horror. How much more then, long ago, the need of the victims?
At last we emerged back into the light and airiness of the public concourse. Our hearts were pounding. We needed to pause, somehow to settle down. Eyes moist, I reached out in silent prayer to the Prince of Peace, remembering what was done to him at Calvary. I tried to imagine the gloom and darkness of the tomb. Eventually, we walked out into the daylight, as did he.