About

Mission Statement: The Wilhelm Gustloff Museum is an online non-profit museum dedicated to exhibiting memorabilia of historical value for public viewing and research benefit. By promoting and displaying such artifacts, they are prevented from falling into private collections where their history will be forgotten and be lost to the world.

Consisting of 36 pages, 40 photo albums, over 3,400 photographs, 320 speisekarten, and over 250 artifacts, Edward Petruskevich has made the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum the largest public collection of the Wilhelm Gustloff and Robert Ley artifacts in the world. In 2017, he was able to merge www.wilhelmgustloff.com with the museum, obtaining an additional 200 pages of information on the liner and her disaster.

In an effort to increase awareness about the Wilhelm Gustloff, I published the online museum into 4 books for those who prefer to have a hardcopy on hand. The titles are: Construction to Maiden Voyage, Maiden Voyage, Voyages, and WWII to SInking.

Areas of Expertise

The history and physical artifacts from the M.S. Wilhelm Gustloff and her sister ship the E.S. Robert Ley, 1936-1945.

Professional Affiliations

Edward has collaboratively worked with authors around the world and his artifacts have been used in books, magazines, and museums in 16 different countries. In 2013, he attended the Council of American Maritime Museum's National Conference in Beaufort, NC as a guest under curator Paul Fontenoy. The lecture presented in front of 45 museum presidents, directors, and educators was aimed at the Wilhelm Gustloff and discussed the possibility of a rotating exhibit with other national maritime museums.