Frontier Guard and the Iron Curtain
In front of you is the open-air exhibition near the border crossing Nové Hrady - Pyhrabruck. This open-air museum was established by the municipality of Nové Hrady using the private collection of Mr. Radomil Marek and his friends from Borovany. The exhibition aims to allow its visitors to have a closer view at the historical development of this section of the border, in particular at the period in which the world was divided into two power blocks when the Iron curtain ran right across this place.
Visitors can make themselves familiar with the historical development of the Czech-Austrian border and with the technical design of border security equipment. A piece of the Iron Curtain has been rebuilt here as an exact copy of the one formerly in use – even with its high voltage system from the Fifties and Sixties of the twentieth century, but there is also a variant with low power signaling from the Seventies and Eighties. In the exposition there are also many items which the sentry had in everyday use then. Most of them were provided on loan by the Czech Border Country Club. The exhibition's design builds on the very latest findings of contemporary historians. The main location of such sources is the security forces' archive of the Czech Ministry of the Interior. One can learn more not only about the life of the members of the Border Patrol, but also about the refugees, agents and members of the Third anti-communist resistance. Quite in the spirit of democratic tradition, the exhibition excludes none of the groups formerly involved in what happened at the Czechoslovak-Austrian border.