About forgotten victims and hidden heroes of healthcare in WWII

In the new exhibition Who Cares? Museum of the Mind focuses on forgotten victims and hidden heroes of the Second World War. And the care in our country during those dark years. How strong was this concern? Did it collapse under the pressure or was it able to prevent atrocities? What did the war mean for patients and care providers?

With the exhibition, Museum of the Mind gives a face to people and stories that have not been highlighted before. As a visitor, through works of art, objects and personal testimonies, you get an idea of ​​the care for the mind in the period just before the Second World War and how that changed during the war years. The exhibition offers an in-depth insight into how psychiatry, mental health care and their patients were viewed in the Netherlands (and Germany).

View unique images from history in combination with art, such as The Truth Festival by Willem van Genk, the uniquely preserved sketches by Wilhelm Werner from the Prinzhorn Collection and previously unseen moving images of the drastic evacuations at Duin en Bosch in 1942.

Universal Declaration of the Open Mind
Every mind is different. Your mind works differently than anyone else’s. And throughout your life the mind is constantly changing. You will face challenges. Giftedness, talent, limitations and diseases. It’s all part of it. Every day people are excluded and not seen as fully fledged in our society. That has to change, because belonging is necessary for a healthy mind. At the end of the exhibition Who Cares? you are asked to sign the Universal Declaration of the Open Mind. We believe in a society in which everyone is heard, seen and allowed to participate. By signing the Universal Declaration of the Open Mind, you join this vision.

Who Cares?, until September 15, 2024, Museum of the Mind, Amstel 51