Kundasang War Memorial

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The entrance to the memorial

The Kundasang War Memorial or ( mal. ) Tugu Peringatan Perang Kundasang is a memorial in Kundasang in the Malaysian state of Sabah , which commemorates the 2,428 British and Australian soldiers who died in the Sandakan POW Camp , during the death marches and in Ranau during World War II . It also pays tribute to the suffering and sacrifice of the local population.

location

The memorial is located in the small town of Kundasang , about 55 kilometers west of the state capital Kota Kinabalu .

history

Sevee Charuruks AM, MBE

The memorial, reminiscent of a fortification, goes back to Major GS Carter DSO, a New Zealand war veteran and employee of Shell Oil Co. (Borneo) , who initiated the construction of the memorial in 1962. The architectural planning was carried out by JC Robinson, a local architect. However, the memorial fell into disrepair in the course of the following decades, until in 2005 the Thai-born pensioner Sevee Charuruks from Kota Kinabalu took the memorial on a private initiative and began to restore it with his own funds. In the years that followed, the Australian government contributed to the restoration with several donations. So flowed RM 120,000 in the fence of the property, RM 350,000 to the "Australian Memorial Hall" that the show is a documentary, RM 120,000 in the demolition and reconstruction of the concrete wall in the Contemplation Garden and RM 14,000 in the establishment of the Confrontation Memorial .

For his voluntary work, Charuruks was awarded the medal “Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)” by Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 . In 2012 the Australian government awarded him the "Member of the Order of Australia (AM)" award.

Structure of the memorial

The Australian garden
Memorial plaque in the English Rose Garden

The memorial is divided into four merging areas, which are connected by a circular path.

  • The Australian Garden,
  • the English rose garden,
  • the Borneo garden with wildflowers of Gunung Kinabalu and
  • the "contemplation garden".

The first three gardens represent the homeland of the victims.

Australian garden

The heart of the Australian garden is the Australian flag and a bronze plaque with the heading "Kinabalu War Memorial Kundasang and Australia". The plaque, created by the artist Ross J. Bastiaan in 1998, documents the history of British and Australian prisoners of war in Sabah in English and Malay. Underneath a relief from Borneo, the creation of the memorial is reported in English. Other elements of the relief are a group of prisoners of war doing forced labor, a prisoner of war on the death march from Sandakan to Ranau and two butterflies. In the lower middle part of the plate there is a graphic representation of the route during the death marches.

English rose garden

The garden dedicated to the British prisoners of war is laid out as a rose garden. A black marble slab with the English flag bears the inscription:

Dedicated To The Lasting Memory Of The 641 British Servecemen
Who Died In Terrible Circumstances
In The Sandakan Prisoner Of War Camp
On The Death Marches And At Ranau 1943–1945
They Shall Grow Not Old, As We That Are Left Grow Old
Age Shall Not Weary Them , Nor The Years Condemn
At The Going Down Of The Sun And In The Morning
We Will Remember Them.

Borneo garden

The Borneo Garden is dedicated to the victims from Borneo. This mainly includes those residents of Sabah who tried to help the prisoners of war in any way and who were themselves killed in the process. Plants and flowers that are native to Sabah grow in the Borneo garden, especially rare orchid species such as Paphiopedilum rothschildianum , which is native to the Kinabalu and belongs to the genus Paphiopedilum .

Contemplation garden

Contemplation Garden

In the Contemplation Garden , a columned corridor leads around an elongated pond facing the Kinabalu . In 2011, marble plaques were placed on the eastern wall with the names of all victims.

POW route

Marking the "POW route"

The Kundasang War Memorial is the last stop on the "POW Route", which marks the stations of the three death marches in the area. It starts in Sandakan and ends at the Kundasang Memorial. The stations of the route are marked with a sign.

Web links

Commons : Kundasang War Memorial  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lynette Ramsay Silver: Friends of Kundasang War Memorial ; Accessed September 29, 2012
  2. ^ New Straits Times: Malaysian duo receive British awards , December 13, 2007
  3. ^ Australian High Commission, Malaysia: Two Malaysians appointed Honorary Members of the Order of Australia ; Accessed September 29, 2012

Coordinates: 5 ° 59 ′ 14.7 "  N , 116 ° 34 ′ 37"  E