The German-Russian Museum, a museum in Berlin dedicated to German-Soviet relations, is dropping the word ‘Russian’ from its name in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
It is now called the Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. Located on the site where the Nazis agreed to surrender on 8 May 1945, the museum opened to the public in 1995.
“For a long time now, we have been discussing our name as the ‘German-Russian Museum’,” the museum said in a statement on 27 April. It said the name “does not adequately reflect our actual work”.
“We remember all Soviet victims of the German war of extermination, regardless of their nationality,” the museum added.
“In future we will use our name ‘Museum Berlin-Karlshorst’, which is registered in the official public records.”
The Museum Berlin-Karlshorst said it condemns the “war of aggression against sovereign Ukraine, which is contrary to international law and is being waged with numerous crimes against the civilian population”.
Rockets strike theme park in Ukraine
“Our compassion and our support goes out to the people affected by the war,” it said. “That is why we stand in solidarity with all those who are raising their voices against this war, both in Russia and around the world.”
Meanwhile, surveillance footage appears to show rockets striking an amusement park called Maxim Gorky Central Park for Culture and Recreation in Kharkiv (via Reuters and ABC News).
In the Ukrainian town of Skovorodynivka, a museum dedicated to poet and philosopher Hryhoriy Skovoroda has been destroyed by Russian shelling (via Reuters and the Guardian).
The Hermitage Amsterdam, a museum of Russian art in the Netherlands, has also “cut ties” with Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg due to the country’s “recent attack on Ukraine”.
In a statement, the institution said it has “distanced itself from political developments in Putin’s Russia” for many years.
Images: Museum Berlin-Karlshorst
