Celebrated for its hands-on approach to presenting the Socialist era in Dubrovnik, the award-winning Red History Museum has just launched a new exhibition which focuses on the tumultuous period immediately before Communist rule.
Running until November 10, Dubrovnik and World War II: Places of Remembrance deals with the four years “in which the old order was destroyed and a new one created”.
How events of the early 1940s are remembered in Dubrovnik is still visible through the names of streets, squares, neighbourhoods, organisations and businesses. Plaques, sculptures, monumental architecture and memorial tombs were unveiled across former Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik obviously included. Not all, however, remain in place today.
These places of memory, both past and present, visible and invisible, form the theme of the new exhibition. It features 39 locations where materialised memory of Dubrovnik’s experience of the most horrific global conflict was, or still is, found.
Granted national status in 2022, the Red History Museum now receives financial support from the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media to set up exhibitions such as this one, which was also partly funded by the City of Dubrovnik, the Dubrovnik Tourist Board and the Croatian National Tourist Board.
Sitting in the former TUP factory opposite the port at Gruž, the museum draws thousands of visitors away from overcrowded Old Town. Two of its original founders, its director Krešo Glavinić, and designer Kristina Mirošević, helped create the current exhibition.
Dubrovnik and World War II: Places of Remembrance, Red History Museum, ulica Svetog Križa 3, 20000 Dubrovnik. Open until November 10, daily 10am-8pm (from Nov 1, daily 11am-5pm). Admission free.