Southeastern Louisiana University will open a new military history museum Wednesday, Aug. 26, called the HIPS Military Museum. “HIPS” is the acronym for the Department of History and Political Science, which curates the collections.
Located in the Patricia A. Ahrens Gallery on the second floor of Fayard Hall (room 223) at 1250 North Oak St., the museum will be open to students, faculty, staff, and the general public 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Thursday, except for holidays. Admission is free, and a website is forthcoming.
The museum is home to large collections donated by Al Freyder and Ralph Shaw, with some smaller donations from alumni. In total more than 1,000 military antiques have been catalogued, including firearms, swords, uniforms, and other artifacts spanning centuries of global conflict.
Associate Professor of Military History at Southeastern and the museum’s director Sam Cavell said the mission of the museum is to honor the armed services and bring to life the personal experiences of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and civilians who endured combat in all its forms. What makes this museum unique, she explained, is that many of the items come “out of the cabinet” for students and visitors to touch and feel and, in the process, gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to go to war at a specific time and place in history.
The opening exhibit, “The Nuremberg Trials and the Search for Justice,” commemorates the 80th anniversary of the verdict in the International Military Tribunal that held senior Nazi officials accountable for crimes committed during WWII. Most were convicted and many were sentenced to death by hanging.
More than 100 artifacts are on display to tell the story of the rise of Adolf Hitler, his demand for a war of annihilation, and the power of an ideology that drove the German people to murder more than 6 million Jews and 5 million others, based solely on race and ethnicity.
As Allied Forces pushed into Germany in 1945, they discovered the horrors of the concentration camps and immediately began gathering evidence of Nazi atrocities. The unprecedented scale and brutality of Nazi genocide demanded the creation of a new criminal charge, “crimes against humanity.” Together with the Subsequent Trials, which continued through 1949, the events that took place at Nuremberg reshaped the world’s view of individual responsibility for wartime actions, made genocide an international crime, and, in the process, redefined human rights.
The exhibit also highlights a significant local connection to the trials. Justice Paul M. Hebert, former dean of LSU Law and namesake of the building that currently houses it, served on the bench at one of the Subsequent Trials. Thanks to a loan from LSU Law Center and LSU Law Library, the judicial robe that Justice Hebert wore at that trial will be on display.
Cavell worked with Graduate Assistants Haley Creith, Abbey Hynes, and Andrew Worthy this summer to catalogue the collection and create the opening exhibit.
“We’re a small museum, but the story packs a punch,” said Cavell. “It’s so important to remember this critical moment in our not-so-distant past when the U.S. led the charge for accountability and justice in an international forum,” Cavell added. “Today Holocaust denial has never been more prevalent, especially among young people. The Nuremberg Trials put the Holocaust on record using the Nazis own documents to prove both their actions and the numbers they killed. It’s a fact of history that cannot be forgotten.”
“Dr. Cavell and her assistants have done an incredible job in telling this important story. The department is grateful to Mr. Freyder and Dr. Shaw for their donations to the estate of Patricia A. Ahrens and to a generous anonymous donor for their financial backing,” said History and Political Science Department Head Bill Robison. “The HIPS Department would also like to thank Southeastern President Dr. William Wainwright, Provost Dr. Eric Skipper, and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Dr. Jeff Wright for their support from the outset.”
Robison added that the museum and its artifacts provide an important opportunity for hands-on instruction and for the promotion of what he calls “enlightened patriotism.”
“Southeastern students now have a hands-on experiential learning resource on campus, and it is not just for history or cultural resource majors,” Robison explained. “Students across many disciplines can be a part of the creative process of designing a museum, maintaining its collections, and making it a platform for community outreach.”
