Never again. We hope

This was on a blank wall in the hall of remembrance. Auckland museum.

2 Likes

Never again. We hope

World War One Hall of Memories - Visit - Auckland War Memorial Museum

World War One Hall of Memories

Inscribed on the walls of the World War One Hall of Memories are the 7297 names of New Zealanders from the Auckland Province who died in the First World War. Almost a third of them have no known grave.

The top floor of the Museum is dedicated to the memory of fallen soldiers and included within the war memorial galleries is the spectacular World War One Hall of Memories.

The World War One Hall of Memories includes a memorial sanctuary which is used significantly for commemoration.

New Zealand sent more men to fight in the First World War, per head of population, than any other nation. 18,166 New Zealanders died from a country of only one million.

The grieving was made harder for New Zealand families because nearly all those killed were buried overseas. 5,325 New Zealand soldiers almost a third of all those killed - have no known grave. Families therefore had nowhere to focus their grief and say goodbye to their loved ones.

For this reason, a large number of war memorials were built around New Zealand, which acted as symbolic graveyards for grieving families. But New Zealand was also very proud of the bravery of our diggers and wanted to celebrate their heroism. Thus war memorials came to fill an uneasy dual role, at once glorifying war as heroic and yet bemoaning the waste of human life. …

Hope is a survival strategy in hopeless times. :biting_lip:

Hope you don’t mind a variation on the theme. I’ve seen a lot of memorials, but there’s one that stands out and the above brought it all back to life again, so I may as well share.


( The life-size replica of Stonehenge in Washington state ) dedication plaque

image
( https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/maryhill-museum-and-stonehenge )

Above the Columbia River, lies a mind blowing (for the unawares passerby) WW1 memorial, especially some 30 years ago, in simpler years, on a misty morning, before anyone else showed up, the whole place and the less populated view along with the shocking surprise of the place out there, basically in the middle of no where, as they say, like it was awaiting my discovery. Although even the destination visitor will be impressed by the structure, the setting, and reason for this monument.

The vision and project of Samuel Hill (1857-1931) a successful businessman, world traveler, builder of monuments, and early advocate of paved roads.

Hill commissioned the Maryhill Stonehenge Memorial to honor World War I dead from Klickitat County, Washington. The monument was dedicated in 1918—while the war was still rampant—and completed in 1929.

The inscription on the altar stone read “To the memory of the soldiers and sailors of Klickitat County who gave their lives in defense of their country … in the hope that others inspired by the example of their valor and their heroism may share in that love of liberty and burn with that fire of patriotism which death alone can quench” (Goldendale Sentinel, July 11, 1918).

The Maryhill Stonehenge alter stone became a sort of war memorial in progress. By the November 11, 1918, armistice the names of seven more Klickitat County men had joined the fallen: Louis Leidl, Harry Gotfredson, Edward Lindblad, Evan Childs, Charles Auer, James Henry Allyn, and William Clary. …


( The life-size replica of Stonehenge in Washington state )

History of Maryhill’s Stonehenge

https://www.maryhillmuseum.org/outside/stonehenge-memorial

On July 4, 1918 the altar stone was dedicated with a plaque that reads:

To the memory of the soldiers and sailors of Klickitat County who gave their lives in defense of their country. This monument is erected in hope that others inspired by the example of their valor and their heroism may share in that love of liberty and burn with that fire of patriotism which death alone can quench.

Never again. We hope.

When will they ever learn?

Never, i do believe !!!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBP59jSU4Ag]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcPsB6PwaiE]

That’s not our world and still less the world toward which we are going.

1 Like

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

Desmond Tutu

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel

1 Like