Memphis, Tenn. (special) -- Behind the story told by World War II Through Russian Eyes are two other stories: one about the international collaboration that brought the exhibit into being, and one about the organizers' plans to share their expected crowds with other museums in San Diego's Balboa Park 

We can start the tale about 10 years ago when a high school teacher from Sakhalin Island, in Russia's Far East--Victor Kouznetsov--led students on a tour of Moscow and a cruise along the Volga River. 

On the cruise were a group of Americans who were studying the river's ecology. It was a time when the communist system was beginning to crumble, but contacts between American and Russian citizens were far from ordinary. By chance, Kouznetsov found himself assigned to the same cabin as one of the Americans, a man named Craig Karen. 

"It was funny because the first night, he was afraid of me and I was afraid of him," said Kouznetsov. "In the morning, I got up, exercised, took a shower, came back, and I asked him why he was sleeping such a long time. He said "look I didn't sleep all night because I was afraid you were from the KGB..." As Kouznetsov had harbored similar concerns, the two men started laughing together. And they became friends
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Karen had another friend: Kermit Weeks, wealthy scion of an Australian oil family, who had immigrated to the United States and had built an international reputation as one of the world's best aerobatic pilots as well as a collector of vintage airplanes. Weeks, creator of the large Fantasy of Flight theme park in southern Florida, was interested in buying any airplanes from Russia that might come onto the market. A year after meeting Karen, Kouznetsov volunteered to serve as Weeks' guide in Russia
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The buying trip came to naught, and Weeks and Kouznetsov went their separate ways. Eventually, Kouznetsov went into a new business, manufacturing precisely modeled historic guns. He became a vendor at the Central Armed Forces Museum of Moscow and became a friend of the museum's director, Colonel Alexander Nikonov. 

As the years advanced, and Russia tried to make the transition from a state-planned economy to a free market system, the museum found itself cash starved. Maybe, Kouznetsov suggested to Nikonov, some of the treasures of the museum's archives, never before shown outside Russia, could be exhibited elsewhere to raise capital for the museum. Nikonov authorized Kouznetsov to explore the idea in the United States. Kouznetsov remembered that Weeks owned the Fantasy of Flight museum in Florida. 

Douglas Marcille, who is Weeks' partner in that museum, told HERITAGE that "it is a 1,200-acre facility with a 5,000 foot grass strip, a 2,500-foot strip, a 6,000-foot water runway" and various hangars that are home to a number of historic aircraft. These include a B-23; the last flying boat; and a simulated aircraft carrier deck with eight airplane simulators that can be configured to resemble various kinds of aircraft. There also are various environments in which visitors can experience being in a World War I trench, or on a World War II airfield, or on a bombing run above a target. Other exhibits include a sealed helium balloon which hoists 25 people at a time 500 feet up a cable; demonstrations and lessons in ultra-light flight, and hover craft -- in short, if it flies, Fantasy of Flight tries to present it.

When Kouznetsov approached Weeks and Marcille about putting on the exhibition, the two men were quite nervous about bringing to the United States so many important, and potentially emotion-causing, nazi artifacts. They feared if they were not careful, such an exhibit could become a magnet attracting members of the American neo-nazi movement and sparking protests among Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, veterans and other groups whose members perished at the hands of the nazis. 

Through a mutual acquaintance, Weeks sought an introduction to Mark Talisman, a former executive with the Council of Jewish Federations who developed a reputation and speciality in mounting major exhibitions. For example, in the 1980's, Talisman had put together The Precious Legacy, an exhibit consisting of sacred Jewish objects that the nazis had looted from destroyed synagogues and other Jewish buildings and had stored in what was intended to be a museum to an extinct race. That exhibition visited 10 sites around the United States including San Diego.

Talisman also was the founding vice chairman of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Weeks knew that if anyone could advise him on how such objects could be presented, it was Talisman.  "We have a mechanism, a sensitivity sensor, in the Holocaust Museum in regards to these questions, as you can imagine," Talisman said."Survivors do not like to see any kind of honor paid to anything related to the nazis, whether a swastika or anything of the sort. When you go to the (Holocaust) Museum, you will see three nazi flags, all of which are on the ground or behind a bar, or a grate. That was our way of dealling with it, mine particularly." He recommended a similar strategy for this exhibition.

Mark Talisman is the director of the World  War II Through Russian Eyes exhibit

"I just felt very strongly that there should be no honor paid to the nazis," Talisman added. "On the other hand, as a teacher of history (at Harvard University) and as a civil libertarian of the first order and as a man who adores even now Thomas Jefferson and Article One (of the U.S. Bill of Rights) I will be damned if I will censor history. 

"So here we have a problem: we have a huge generation--actually two of them, if not three--who do not know a thing about this era, going into the next millenium without any preparation whatsoever. I am a student of (philosopher George) Santayana--literally his student--who said 'those who do not understand history are condemned to re-live it.' If you do not know it, you are not going to know what the signs are." 

So Talisman, Weeks, Marcille and Kouznetsov created the exhibition and the Historic Achievements Museum was formed to serve as a vehicle for taking the exhibit around the United States. The Russians gave the group a two-year period to make use of the artifacts. 

Once the objects were selected, the exhibition was given a preview showing in Washington D.C. in the new Ronald Reagan Office Building. In a month, it drew 50,000 people. Then it went to Memphis--to the Pyramid building, which drew its inspiration from the ancient Egyptian city for which Memphis was named. Even though winter is the off-season in Memphis, more than 80,000 people attended. 

All the while, the exhibition was being refined--a process that Talisman compared to readying a play for Broadway by first taking it on the road for trials. Now, he said, for World War II Through Russian Eyes, San Diego is Broadway. The March 13-July 4 exhibition--which potentially could be extended--will include more artifacts than were shown in either of the two previous venues, and will involve a full program of cooperation with neighboring museums in Balboa Park. 

In San Diego, Russian and American veterans plan to tell their stories of World War II at the Veterans Memorial Museum, which is located in what used to be the chapel of Navy Hospital. Two films will be shown at the Veterans Memorial Museum on a regular basis , according to Marcille. A 90-minute movie was distilled by exhibition organizers into  The Great Patriotic War from 68 cans of 35 millimeter film shot by Russian photojournalists. Additionally, according to Marcille, "the best of the rest" was made into another movie bearing the same name as the exhibition, World War II Through Russian Eyes.

Negotiations with the Aerospace Museum are aimed at displaying a Russian AN-2 owned by Weeks, as well as a Feisler Storch-- a German troop movement plane that flies very slowly and was used in a rescue of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and an unsuccessful attempt to rescue Hitler from Berlin. 

Additionally, Marcille said, the portion of the World War II Through Russian Eyes exhibition on the heroics of Russian women pilots called "night witches" by the nazis may be incorporated into a planned exhibition at the Aerospace Museum on women in aviation. 

The nearby Automobile Museum may also be involved in a collaborative exhibit, Marcille said, with plans being firmed up to exhibit together Adolf Hitler's parade car and one used by former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

The Hall of Champions is planning to open an exhibition in July on the 1932 Olympics and "by sheer coincidence, Kermit just finished restoring the exact type of aircraft that flew around Olympic stadium in Berlin. It has been painted the exact same colors with the Olympic rings." 

Marcille said he also is discussing with the Starlight Theatre a joint program for ticket sales, as well as "maybe leasing out that area for a Russian-American cafe" during the course of the exhibit
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While the House of Pacific Relations does not include a House of Russia among the cottages representing various nationalities, Marcille said "the Russians would be happy if this could occur, if a House of Russia could be left behind. We're hoping to work something out, but it is a park decision."   A House of Ukraine--Russia's co-Republic  in the former Soviet Union--is located in the cluster of cottages. 

Assuming the details for a collaborative exhibition can be worked out with the various neighboring museums, Marcille said a joint ticket, similar to the Balboa Park passport, is envisioned that would permit park visitors to see everything having to do with World War II. 

Marcille, whose background in law and accounting serves him well as the producer of the exhibit, said tickets will cost $14.75 for adults, and that there will be the normal range of discounts for seniors, children and groups. Ticketmaster will be permitted to sell only so many tickets per 15-minute time slot, while some tickets will be reserved for walk-up traffic in Balboa Park, Marcille said. Although entry will be timed to control traffic flow, visitors may stay at the exhibition as long as they desire, Marcille said.