Ammunition Hill

The Ammunition Hill is just next to where we live, and today we went there to figure out what it was about. I expected a museum, as in the closed type inside a building of some sort, but this was open ground also. It's commemorating the Six Day war in June 1967, where Israel concured the rest of Jerusalem from Jordan (and whiped out Egypt's air force, and beated Syria too) after it had been divided for 19 years after the "War of Independence" in 1948. We joined in on a lecture and a movie next to the model of Jerusalem; the movie was very well done in the way that it showed with coloured and moving light on the 3D model of Jerusalem which areas which army held, where the Municipality Border was during the 19 years, and how the forces moved during the Six Day War.

I was a bit surprised to feel so... bad about seeing soliders and gunfire and tanks in a city that's not mine, but which I think I know it by now, even thought the pictures were in black and white. In Denmark we're so used to peace, last time we had war in our country was in 1864 (if we don't count the occupation in 1940-5), so this is the closest I've come to know how people feel, when they see their homes and city destroyed by war.


In the actual museum were, among other things, biographies of all the soldiers, who had fallen in the Six Day War. They were both on interactive screens (only in Hebrew) and on big metal plates as the ones in the picture above. I can't figure out if I think it's repulsive or nice with all these commemorations (not only here but all over the city), but the repulsive might be the aspects of war and extremism (wanting to kill the enemy and/or die for your contry), the nice part that other people remember them.

There also was a collection of rockets of the time, with describtions on the plates on how much TNT they carried, how heavy they were, how long they could reach, and other useful informations...

I'm happy to be a Dane, who don't need to think about war and despair and loosing my home. But I also want to visit a Palestinian museum about the Six Day war and see how they tell the story - only I don't think there is such a museum.