Shrine of Remembrance

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A look at the north side of the shrine shows many visitors showing their respect. The annual ANZAC Day parade approaches the shrine from the north. This picture shows the sculptures in the Pediment which were clearly inspired by those in the Parthenon . The central figure is the "Call to Arms".
inside the shrine
The shrine in the 1930s with the reflecting pool in front of the north side, which is now the World War II Forecourt
the Ceremonial Avenue
One of the four groups of statues that mark the corners of the shrine. Greek and Assyrian influences can be seen, but no Christian motifs. The four groups representing peace , justice , patriotism and sacrifice were created by sculptor Paul Montford.
the west side of the shrine

The Shrine of Remembrance ( English for Shrine of Remembrance ) in the St. Kilda Road in Melbourne is one of the largest war memorials in Australia . It was erected as a memorial to all of the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I , but it soon became Australia's central memorial to all 60,000 Australians who died in the war. Today it serves as a memorial for all Australians who served in the war and it is the place for the annual ANZAC Day (April 25th) and Remembrance Day (November 11th) ceremony .

history

There were proposals for a war memorial in Melbourne when the war ended in November 1918. In 1920 the government of Victoria appointed an advisory committee to consider an arch of victory over St. Kilda Road, the great boulevard from Melbourne to the south and one of the busiest thoroughfares in Melbourne. In August 1921, an executive committee was formed, with the former commander of the Australian armed forces at war, General Sir John Monash , as the driving force. The panel rejected the idea of ​​an arch and proposed a large monumental monument to the east of St. Kilda Road, where it was clearly visible from the city. A design competition was announced, which was won by Melbourne architects and war veterans Philipp Hudson and James Wardrop.

The design of the proposed shrine was based on the ancient tomb of Maussollos , the mausoleum of Halicarnassus , one of the Seven Wonders of the World . It had a massive, pyramid-shaped structure with classic porticos at the ends of wide flight of stairs on the north and south sides. Granodiorite , which was mined in Tynong, was chosen as the building material . The press criticized this design for its size, strict lines, and cost, most notably Keith Murdoch's Herald . Murdoch called the shrine a "grave of melancholy" ("a tomb of gloom"). Some Christian churches condemned the design as pagan because it did not contain a crucifix or other Christian elements. The Jew Monash was charged for this when in reality he did not promote Hudson and Wardrop's design.

In the face of this criticism, the government of Victoria abandoned the project in 1926 and proposed instead that a cenotaph be built in a large "ANZAC Square" at the end of Bourke Street in front of the Parliament building. To do this, however, the Windsor Hotel, one of the oldest and largest in Melbourne, would have had to be demolished. Monash then struck back and transformed the 1927 ANZAC Day march, during which he led 30,000 veterans through the streets of Melbourne, into a demonstration for the shrine on St. Kilda Road, thereby endorsing the influential newspapers Age and Argus as well as the won the mighty Returned and Services League (RSL). The government then changed its mind again.

The foundation stone was laid on November 11, 1927 by the Governor of Victoria, Arthur Somers-Cocks, 6th Baron Somers . Although the governments of Victoria and the Commonwealth had given grants, most of the cost of the shrine was funded by public donations, with Monash acting as the main collector.

Monash, who had worked as a civil engineer before 1914 , took personal responsibility for construction, which began in July 1928. He rejected proposals that an " unknown soldier " should be buried in the shrine, on the grounds that this should be done in the still-to-be-built Australian War Memorial in the new Australian capital Canberra . He also denied statues of individual war leaders, including himself. Monash penned the inscription on the west side of the shrine:

LET ALL MEN KNOW THAT THIS IS HOLY GROUND. THIS SHRINE, ESTABLISHED IN THE HEARTS OF MEN AS ON THE SOLID EARTH, COMMEMORATES A PEOPLE'S FORTITUDE AND SACRIFICE. YE THEREFORE THAT COME AFTER, GIVE REMEMBRANCE.
(Let everyone know that this is sacred ground. This shrine, erected in the hearts of men as on solid earth, is a reminder of the strength and sacrifice of a people. You who follow you remember them.)

This inscription again aroused criticism because it contained no Christian and no religious elements at all. In fact, it was closely based on the memorial inscriptions of ancient Greece and reflected Monash classical education more than his Judaism. Monash died in 1931 before the shrine was completed, but its completion took a toll on his determination. There is a large equestrian statue of Monash in the park surrounding the shrine, although there are no monuments dedicated to individuals at the shrine itself.

The inscription - not written by Monash - on the east side reads:

THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY A GRATEFUL PEOPLE TO THE HONORED MEMORY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO SERVED THE EMPIRE IN THE GREAT WAR OF 1914–1918.
(This monument was erected by a grateful people in honor of the men and women who served the Empire in the great war of 1914–1918.)

The beginning of the Great Depression in late 1929 slowed down construction on the shrine. But by 1930 the crisis saw the shrine's progress as numerous unemployed men on low wages were hired to work on the project. Many of them were war veterans who welcomed the chance to help finish the shrine. The work was finally completed in September 1934 and the shrine was formally dedicated by the Duke of Gloucester on November 11, 1934, with 300,000 spectators forming what is believed to be Melbourne's largest gathering.

After World War II , the need was felt to add an element to the shrine to commemorate the Australian victims of the Second Great War. The result was the World War II Forecourt (an extensive stone structure in front of the north side of the shrine), the Eternal Flame (a permanent gas flame west of the north side) and the World War II Memorial, a 12.5 m high cenotaph a little further west. The forecourt replaced a reflective pool of water that had been emptied and refilled during the war. These extensions were dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II on February 28, 1954. Australia's involvement in later wars such as the Korean War , the Malayan Emergency , the Vietnam War and the Gulf War are remembered with inscriptions.

In 1951, the body of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Blamey , the military commander of Australia during World War II, was on public display for three days and then buried with a state funeral. This was the only time the building was used for any other purpose.

During the Vietnam War, the shrine became a center of conflict when opponents of the war demonstrated against Australia's participation in the war during ANZAC Day ceremonies . In 1971 the shrine was disfigured when someone painted the word PEACE in large white letters on the pillars of the north portico . Despite intensive cleaning, the porous structure of the rock ensured that the slogan remained faintly visible for 20 years.

In 1985, the Remembrance Garden was added to the west side of the shrine to honor those who served in post-World War II conflicts. The garden includes a pond, a waterfall and a granite wall with the place names of the conflicts in which Australia was involved, such as Kuwait (Gulf War) and East Timor .

The shrine today

For the past 70 years, the shrine has been the center of war memorial in Melbourne. Although Memorial Day on November 11th is the official memorial day for war victims, it has gradually been supplanted in public perception by ANZAC Day on April 25th, which, unlike Memorial Day, is a special Australian (and New Zealand ) memorial day. Every ANZAC Day there is a “dawn service” at the shrine, which attracts large crowds, and the veterans march ends in the shrine forecourt.

Inside the shrine is the sanctuary which contains the Stone of Remembrance , a marble stone sunk into the ground . Visitors have to bow their heads to read the inscription:

GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN
(No one has greater love.)

The stone is aligned with an aperture in the roof of the sanctuary so that at exactly 11am on November 11th, a ray of sunshine falls on the word LOVE, indicating the hour and day of the armistice that ended the First World War. However, the introduction of summer time in Victoria meant that the sun beam no longer fell on the right place at 11 a.m. Therefore, a mirror was placed on the roof to direct the sunlight onto the stone at the right time. During the rest of the year, a lamp simulates the effect.

Around the walls of the sanctuary runs a frieze made of twelve carved panels by the sculptor Pietro Porcelli, depicting the armed forces in action during the First World War. Along the outpatient clinic there are 42 bronze boxes containing handwritten, illustrated Books of Remembrance . These contain the names of all residents of Victoria who enrolled in active military service with the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) or the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force during World War I, or who died in the camp before embarkation. These books turn to a different page each day.

Under the sanctuary is the crypt which contains the statue of a father and son representing the two generations who went to war together. There are boards around the walls listing every unit of the AIF through to the battalion and regiment with the colors of the epaulettes. In the crypt hang the standards of the various battalions and regiments, which are listed with their war honors.

The shrine is located in a large park, the King's Domain . Many other war memorials have been erected in the area over the years, including the Australian-Hellenic Memorial for the Australian and Greek dead in the battles in Greece and Crete in 1941 and statues of Monash and Blamey. Many of the trees that frame the entrances to the shrine bear plaques reminding of individual army units, warships or squadrons of the Air Force and which were placed there by groups of veterans. There is also an older memorial nearby for residents of Victoria who were killed in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902.

At the northeast corner of the shrine is the Gallipoli Memorial, a small statue of the "Man with the Donkey". Officially the statue represents the "strength and passion of the Australian soldier" ("valor and compassion of the Australian soldier"), but it is the model of Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick and the dates on the memorial - April 25th to May 19th - represent the period in which Simpson survived in Gallipoli . Nearby is a Calabrian pine that grew from the seeds of the original Lone Pine in Gallipoli. (This lonely pine tree stood in the field of the battle named after it.)

Due to the increasing number of visitors in the 1990s, a new visitor center and museum were established in the shrine (opened in 2003). The center contains an auditorium , administrative facilities and other amenities. It offers improved opportunities for visitors, including the many school classes who visit the shrine every day, and makes it easier for the elderly and disabled to gain access. The outer doors and the doors in the north are only used for ceremonial purposes. Access from the visitor center now leads directly into the crypt and up a short flight of stairs. The Victoria Cross , won by Captain Robert Cuthbert Grieve at the Battle of Messines in 1917 , is on display in the visitor center .

As memories of the individual battles of World War I (apart from Gallipoli) in Australia have faded, few people are still aware of the “ Battle Honors ” discs, the 16 stone discs in the shrine's balustrade . These discs are the war honors bestowed by King George V and commemorate Australia's contribution to the following battles:

The shrine is administered by a board of trustees appointed by the Victoria government. The board of trustees is responsible for the care, administration and maintenance of the building and the development of the memorial. Security has improved significantly over the past few years, with a group of police officers from Victoria guarding the shrine at all times. During opening hours or at a ceremony, they wear a WWI Australian Light Horseman uniform with Victoria Police insignia.

literature

  • Inglis, KS assisted by Jan Brazier (1998). Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape , Melbourne University Press, Victoria, Australia.
  • Serle, Geoffrey (1982). John Monash: A Biography , Melbourne University Press.

Web links

Commons : Shrine of Remembrance  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 37 ° 49 ′ 50 ″  S , 144 ° 58 ′ 23 ″  E