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The War from both Sides: how Dutch and German Visitors Experience an Exhibit of Second World War Stories

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Abstract

At the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, questions arise if contemporary audiences still find historical accounts relevant. Fundamental to understanding the relevance of stories from the war is assessing their emotional impact on leisure participants from various social groups. We used the social identity theory framework to assess differences in emotional reactions of Dutch and German visitors to stories of the Second World War presented at a Dutch museum exhibit. Emotional reactions were measured using physiological signals of heart rate and heart rate variability as well as self-report. Emotions experienced were mixed and often, but not always, different between Dutch and German participants. Patterns in the physiological and self-report data differed. Many of the significant differences were generally consistent with a collective guilt account of German social identity, but the findings as a whole were more complex than could be predicted by existing social identity accounts. Specifically, participants did not simply categorize themselves with either national or human identities of characters based on what their respective stories emphasized. We conclude that stories of the Second World War are still relevant, but touch on audiences’ nationalities in a complex way, beyond simple historical categories.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, Netherlands

    Ondrej Mitas, Renée Cuenen & Marcel Bastiaansen

  2. University of Tilburg, Tilburg, Netherlands

    Marcel Bastiaansen

  3. The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    Garry Chick

  4. War Museum Overloon, Overloon, North Brabant, Netherlands

    Erik van den Dungen

Authors
  1. Ondrej Mitas
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  2. Renée Cuenen
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  3. Marcel Bastiaansen
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  4. Garry Chick
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  5. Erik van den Dungen
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Correspondence to Ondrej Mitas.

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Declaration

This study’s findings have not been published previously. All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Renée Cuenen as part of her Master thesis work. Data analysis was performed by Ondrej Mitas. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ondrej Mitas and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. This research was jointly funded by the War Museum Overloon and the Breda University of Applied Sciences. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Anonymized data and data analysis code are available upon request.

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Mitas, O., Cuenen, R., Bastiaansen, M. et al. The War from both Sides: how Dutch and German Visitors Experience an Exhibit of Second World War Stories. Int J Sociol Leis 3, 277–303 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-020-00062-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-020-00062-3

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