... ...The War Graves Workers......Photograph: War graves...Frank Cahir from Yendon in central Victoria had seen death in the trenches of Gallipoli - and then the killing fields of France, his daily work as an Australian war graves worker would have been markedly different. It seems likely that Frank would have echoed Henry Whiting, a fellow war graves worker who foretold, “We will be a hard-hearted crowd when we get back, after the sights we see and the many thousands we will have raised by that time”....In 1917, as a result of ongoing graves registration campaigning by Sir Fabian Ware and others, the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) was established to commemorate every soldier with permanent memorials or headstones, and to make no distinction between rank.
This created an immense challenge for authorities on how to appropriately care for and commemorate the war dead. ...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.
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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.
