Juno Beach Centre, Courseulles-sur-Mer, France

The Juno Beach Centre or is a museum situated immediately behind the beach codenamed Juno, the section of the Allied beachhead on which 14,000 Canadian troops landed on D-Day 6 June 1944.

The Centre was conceived in the 1990s by a group of Canadian veterans who felt that the contributions and sacrifices of Canadian soldiers during the liberation of Europe were not properly commemorated and represented in the Normandy region. The project, spearheaded by veteran Garth Webb and his companion Lise Cooper, began initially as a grassroots fundraising campaign that eventually gained the financial support of many institutions and businesses and the Canadian and French governments at many levels. The Centre was inaugurated on 6 June 2003. Over one thousand Canadian veterans attended the inauguration in 2003, as well as the 2004 ceremony for the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

The museum's scope is not only the D-Day landings. Through detailed and interactive exhibition rooms, the museum relates the story of life in Canada before the outbreak of the war, Canada’s civilian and military contribution to the war effort, and contemporary Canadian society in the decades since World War II.

The building itself, designed by Canadian architect Brian K. Chamberlain, is a single-storey structure with five main points, resembling a stylized maple leaf. The exterior is clad in titanium scales and stands about 100 meters back from the present line of sand dunes. A ceremonial area, which features a statue entitled Remembrance and Renewal, stands between the Centre and the dunes. A gap in the dunes is filled by a symbolic structure shaped as a landing craft—a memorial to the French Resistance. An intact German bunker, once an observation post, stands immediately in front of this memorial.

The museum also houses a temporary exhibition space which changes approximately once per year and which highlights various histories and themes relating to Canada past and present.

The Juno Beach Centre is open year round and closes routinely for the month of January. It offers guided visits of Juno Beach that are provided by Canadian students.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Rob Woodburn (5 months ago)
Every single Canadian needs to go and check out the Juno Beach centre. The staff are so knowledgable and helpful. They are all students from Canada and you can see the pride they have in Canada as there guide you through the centre and around the grounds. You'll definitely walk away as a proud Canadian.

Doug Campbell (7 months ago)
A must see to really appreciate what the Canadians achieved and contributed to D day. We almost decided not to pay to see the exhibit but so glad we eventually did!

Patrick Turner (9 months ago)
Excellent museum honoring Canadian forces that fought and died in Normandy. Staff are Canadian and are super friendly (they’re Canadian!). My son and I really enjoyed it. I met a nice Canadian on a short business visit to the area at the American Cemetery at Omaha. He mentioned he had limited time and I emphasized he visit here as all Canadians should!

Carley Young (9 months ago)
This is a great memorial. Lots of educational signs to help better understand what happened. The beach was very clean and beautiful. Bike/wall paths through the Length of the beach to help you see all the sites.

Alex Dugal (11 months ago)
This is my third visit, very touching every time. I recommend you plan at least 90 minutes for your visit and bunker tour. My group generally does the bunker tour, then museum tour, picnic lunch nearby on the grass and spends the afternoon on the beach. The history and symbolic message of the memorial is truly inspiring, so many have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Great job by the organization and guides!

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The Moszna Castle is one of the best known monuments in the western part of Upper Silesia. The history of this building begins in the 17th century, although much older cellars were found in the gardens during excavations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the investigators, including H. Barthel, claimed that those cellars could have been remnants of a presumed Templar castle, but their theory has never been proved. After World War II, further excavations discovered a medieval palisade.

The central part of the castle is an old baroque palace which was partially destroyed by fire on the night of April 2, 1896 and was reconstructed in the same year in its original form by Franz Hubert von Tiele-Winckler. The reconstruction works involved an extension of the residence. The eastern Neogothic-styled wing of the building was built by 1900, along with an adjacent orangery. In 1912-1914, the western wing was built in the Neo-Renaissance style. The architectural form of the castle contains a wide variety of styles, thus it can be generally defined as eclectic.

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Apart from the castle itself, the entire complex includes a park which has no precise boundaries and includes nearby fields, meadows and a forest. Only the main axis of the park can be characterised as geometrical. Starting from the gate, it leads along the oak and then horse-chestnut avenues, towards the castle. Further on, the park passes into an avenue of lime trees with symmetrical canals running along both sides of the path, lined with a few varieties of rhododendrons. The axis of the park terminates at the base of a former monument of Hubert von Tiele-Winckler. On the eastern side of the avenue there is a pond with an islet referred to by the owners as Easter Island. The islet is planted with needle-leaved shrubs and can be reached by a Chinese-styled bridge. The garden, as part of the whole park complex was restored slightly earlier than the castle itself. Preserved documents of 1868 state that the improvement in the garden's aesthetic quality was undertaken by Hubert von Tiele-Winckler.

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