June 6 marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy in northern France, in which Allied troops mounted the largest amphibious invasion in history to break Adolf Hitler’s Nazi stranglehold on western Europe.
Many Iowans were involved in those landings, the liberation of Europe and the ending of the Holocaust – the Nazi genocide against the Jewish people. Nearly 227,000 Iowans served in the war and almost 8,400 died.
In commemoration of that struggle for liberty, the exhibit will showcase the D-Day landings and the year-long struggle through northern Europe to final victory over Naziism.
Drawing from the Museum's archives of more than 2,300 oral histories of Iowa veterans, visitors will hear firsthand accounts of the struggle – including the D-Day landings; the race across France; the insufferable wintertime Battle of Bulge in December-January 1944-45; the entrance into Germany; the crossing of the Rhine River and the linkup with Soviet troops advancing from the East to crush the brutal Nazi regime.