ST PAUL, Minn. — 75 years ago Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France. The D-Day invasion marked a turning point in World War II. For the Minnesotans who were there, some of their stories can be heard at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.
"It was the point at which the Allied forces landed on continental Europe and engaged in a battle that in many ways did shift the course of the war. But from a personal level I think the significance for the people who were there, for the people who were watching it unfold... you have to remember that yes, it's an advance but at what cost? The human lives lost, the people who... experienced the trauma that went along with it, are also a part of that significance," said Kate Roberts, senior exhibit developer for the Minnesota Historical Society.
Minnesotans' stories from D-Day are a part of the Minnesota History Center's longtime exhibit "Minnesota's Greatest Generation."
"Probably the most powerful thing that we have in the exhibit is what we call an interactive multimedia experience where you enter a C-47... you're enveloped in a story along with people who are landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day," Roberts explained. "So you hear the fears, you hear the reaction, you literally hear when someone jumps in a parachute onto the beach."
Before the exhibit's opening in 2009, Minnesota History Center staff conducted interviews with Minnesota veterans and their families.
One of those interviews was with Otto Schmaltz of St. Paul. Schmaltz went ashore on D-Day as a medic. Many of the men in the unit he was attached to drowned before ever reaching the beach. His medic kit is featured in the exhibit.
"This medic kit is one of the more powerful objects in the exhibit, I think. It's small. You can look at it and say, 'It's just a box' but it contains the memory of Otto Schmaltz," Roberts said.
Minnesota's Greatest Generation is an ongoing exhibit, meaning it has no closing date. Roberts encourages people to visit the exhibit with different generations.
She said, "The idea of this battle and of this moment when Allied soldiers went in knowing that many of them would not come out, knowing that they had an opportunity to shift what was happening in the war and gave it their all, is something that does live on and that I think people remember and should remember and should honor."