Lest we FORGET

All around Auckland, monuments, buildings and public spaces pay tribute to the soldiers who left home and sometimes never came back

“The beginning of the end of war,” wrote Herman Wouk, “lies in remembrance.” One hundred years on, the First World War Heritage Trail in Auckland is a reminder of all those soldiers who died or participated in a war that at the time might have seemed impossible to forget.

Yet, as the years move on, it is easy to see how we cannot only forget those times but become emotionally distant from them. The heritage trail will go some way towards keeping alive the impacts World War I had on communities within New Zealand.

Marking the centenary and under the initiative of Ian Maxwell, Manager of Parks, Sport and Recreation, Auckland Council is developing the trail to incorporate a wide range of sites.

These will act as “steppingoff points to tell more of the story,” says Sandra Coney, Chair of Auckland Council’s WW100 Political Steering Group. Through the careful selection of sites under six different themes (going to war; training, administration and defence; the economic war effort; the home front; opposition to the war and enemy aliens; and rehabilitation and remembrance), we will be able to attain an insight into the milieu at the time – the price of war for our families, our beliefs, our communities and our economy, as well as the soldiers in the trenches.

The trail is also about the telling of human stories: what it was like for families when fathers, sons and brothers had gone to war; the celebrations when these men returned; and what their lives were like after the war when recovering from injuries and re-entering the workforce. The trail serves as a portal for post-war generations to begin their own journeys of historical investigation.

Sites on the trail will be supported by interpretive signage, some signs being permanent and others in place for the duration of the commemorative period. It is envisaged that an app will be available to download onto smart phones which will include photos of what places looked like during the war and enable the public to drill down to more information online. Contributions to our body of historical knowledge can be made by the public through another council initiative, the Auckland Libraries website called Our Boys, Our Families.

The sites will be spread across the Auckland region, in those days a series of separate villages, from each of which departed a large proportion of the young males, and each now having its own memorial of some sort. Participants are not expected to drive along the entire trail. Rather, it is envisaged that they will explore parts of the trail virtually and may be inspired to visit some of those sites geographically close to each other, perhaps the ones in their local areas, of which they may not have had any prior knowledge. The Auckland trail is expected to open in August this year.

If you have further historical information about any of these sites, please email heritage@ aucklandcouncil.govt.nz