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Following the Dawn Service, the Auckland War Memorial Museum is open for a full day of activities on Anzac Day 2011 (Monday 25 April), including the opening of Mr. Jones’ Wives exhibition, performances, poetry readings, free tours of the Scars on the Heart galleries and WWII film projections. Our ANZAC programme continues throughout April and May.
On Anzac Day we look to the past, remembering those who strove to protect our future. We remember those who served on foreign battlefields, and those who stayed behind. Those who lost their lives, and those who survived.
New Zealand sent more men to fight in World War I per head of population than any other nation. Of those killed, almost a third were buried half a world away in unmarked graves. Following the war, subscriptions were raised to construct the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The Museum opened in 1929 and became a symbolic meeting-place for Aucklanders to focus their grief.
Today Auckland War Memorial Museum still forms the city’s emotional hub around Anzac Day. In the lead-up to Anzac Day – and on the evening of Anzac Day – we project World War II films onto the Museum’s northern façade. This year's projections focus on the contributions of New Zealanders in the Second World War. |
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.
From the poem for the fallen
by Laurence Binyon |
