If what I say is true - history is ugly - then the first gallery we entered at Cosmosphere was a testament to that ugliness. This was the German gallery, displaying the time when Nazi Germany advanced rocketry and weaponry at an alarming rate. Cosmosphere houses one of the only complete sets of the V-1 and V-2 rockets in the world.
The compelling pieces were the contextual panels that explained how the V-1 and V-2 were developed separately, in competition with one another. One came about faster than the other, and at a lower budget, due to the use of concentration camp prisoners who, under deplorable treatment and living conditions, were forced to do the dirty work of Hitler's force. The swastikas displayed on the rockets and in a nearby flag are chilling. Thankfully, they were displayed as a part of the historical context and not out of pride for the philosophy for which they stand.
