A new museum is putting one of Canada’s darkest chapters into the spotlight, to foster education and an understanding of the history of Indigenous culture. At the former site of the Mohawk Institute Residential School, a new interpretive cultural centre is set to officially open in Brantford.For over 140 years, thousands of Indigenous children were taken away from everyone and everything that they knew or loved. The building now holds their truth and honours the children who were forced to attend the Mohawk Insitute. “What I’m seeing in this building today is our history. This is also Canada’s history,” said Roberta Hill, a Mohawk Institute survivor.“It was important to us to try to give visitors to place themselves into the foot steps if those children or even to think about their own family members,” added Heather George, the executive director.The Mohawk Institute was the first and longest running residential school in Canada. It eventually closed in 1970 and reopened in Woodland Cultural Centre.When the building began to fall into disrepair, the centre and the community decided to preserve it and save the evidence of what happened there.“I think sometimes because when we’re talking to survivors … we forget they were kids. They were six and eight years old,” said George.Visitors will now be able to walk the same halls as those kids. A classroom, a laundry room and other spaces have been reconstructed. You can also read and hear firsthand accounts from survivors to find out what residential school life was like. Hill arrived at the institute in 1957 at the age of six with her five siblings. She attended until she was 10 years old.“I don’t think anybody can accurately understand the trauma we went through. We can tell you. Hopefully there is somebody [who] understands what we went through but it was a pretty devastating time for a lot of kids,” said Hill.Survivors’ children can also get a glimpse of their parents’ childhood.Waneta Davidson’s mother came to the Mohawk Institute from Tyendinaga, a First Nations reserve on the Bay of Quinte, in 1949 with her two sisters and her brother.“Coming here, it’s basically my first time being here since they’ve been gone and I find it’s heavy,” said Davidson.The children were no longer allowed to use their names at the Mohawk Institute and were assigned a number. “It makes me understand why she was the way she was. How you had to be so strong … you had to grow up so fast,” said Davidson.“These institutions … it wasn’t for our best interest. It was for the government and the church to destroy the identity of Indigenous children to take away the right to be who they were,” added Hill.The former Mohawk Institute Interpretive Cultural Centre will be open to the public on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30.