Indice degli autori

Abstract: The paper will deal with the new responsibilities and duties of the city museum curator facing the economical, political and cultural changes of the 21st century. The author takes as an example the exhibition The great plunder. New questions about Luxembourg during the Second World War, which the city museum of Luxembourg showed from May to November 2005. The annexation of Luxembourg by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1944 went hand in hand with the appropriation of the country’s cultural heritage. During this period, the new masters of the country tried to appropriate for themselves not only the wealth and the property, but also art and cultural goods belonging to Jews, to emigrants, to displace populations etc. Certain Luxemburgers took advantage of this situation to their personal benefit. This issue, together with that of the resistance against the occupier, is one of the truths still to be revealed on the war. Using the example of Luxembourg for this first global exhibition, it showed the way the robbery was organised, named the profiteers and related the victims desperate attempts after the war to get their possessions back. The paper shows that a museum cannot exhibit reality, it can only mirror it. In the 21st century the city museum should be a place, which looks after the public use of History, since History binds and makes existing society binding; it resists forgetfulness of the past and helps to clarify the present. The curator has to provoke discussion about the heritage of city community. Thus the museum becomes a democratic institution, i.e. one of the public platforms to discuss society’s intangible heritage.