... Missing and Wounded Enquiry Bureau...The Missing...False Hope of the Missing...The success of the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau depended on being able to gather information from sick and wounded soldiers. It was a grave duty: asking the battle-weary and the shell-shocked to speak in detail of their horror... and burial of those killed or who had died of wounds, and keeping relatives informed about sick and wounded soldiers....When WW1 brought Australians face to face with mass death, a Red Cross Information Bureau and post-war graves workers laboured to help families grieve for the missing.
The unprecedented death toll of the First World War generated a burden of grief ...
When WW1 brought Australians face to face with mass death, a Red Cross Information Bureau and post-war graves workers laboured to help families grieve for the missing.
The unprecedented death toll of the First World War generated a burden of grief. Particularly disturbing was the vast number of dead who were “missing” - their bodies never found.
This film and series of photo essays explores two unsung humanitarian responses to the crisis of the missing of World War 1 – the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau and the post-war work of the Australian Graves Detachment and Graves Services. It tells of a remarkable group of men and women, ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, who laboured to provide comfort and connection to grieving families in distant Australia.
