Memorials
A selection of documents and artworks we hold about Memorials: Read more below 
Either you don’t have Flash or else your version of Flash is too old. Flash 9 is required for interactive zoomable image support. Download the latest version of Flash.
 | |
| |
| |
| |
The campaigns in which New Zealand soldiers fought and died were thousands of miles from home. In 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission (later the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) was created to commemorate members of the armed forces of the Empire and Dominions who died in the War. Military cemeteries were established in Belgium, France and the Middle East by the Commission for servicemen killed on active service. Engraved onto New Zealand headstones were a fern leaf, soldier’s name, rank, unit, date of death, and age. On the headstones of unidentified bodies was the inscription ‘Known unto God’. Soldiers whose bodies were never found or unidentified are recorded on memorials to the missing at the cemeteries.
Consideration was soon given to the servicemen and women who died in the post-war years. In 1921, the Government, together with the Returned Soldiers’ Association established military cemeteries throughout New Zealand. A War Graves Section of the Department of Internal Affairs was set up to administer the cemeteries. Over 170 service cemeteries exist in New Zealand, most of them located within existing public cemeteries.
There was an attempt, through civic memorials, and honour boards in churches, school and workplaces, to give some local physical expression to remembrance, and these monuments became functional substitutes for the lack of graves and headstones. Memorial services were one way of helping individuals, families and communities to mourn publicly. The use of euphemistic language, such as ‘the fallen’ was a way of softening the reality of war and death. Memorial services, with their reverential music, hushed tones, patriotic hymns and sanctifying language, contributed to the growing mythology surrounding the war.
After the war the service quickly lost its patriotic function, becoming more a remembrance of the war dead. Services in public halls or churches were replaced in the 1920s by commemorations at the newly erected war memorials. Those memorials continue to be the focus of commemoration of New Zealand's war dead and acknowledgement of the service of all those who served in time of war.
