Assess the methods used by the Australian War Memorial to fulfil its aims of commemoration and furthering understanding of war.

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Assess the methods used by the Australian War Memorial to fulfil its aims of commemoration and furthering understanding of war.

Brenton Um

Form IV, Set 2

Word Count: 1480

The Australian War Memorial fulfils its aims by commemorating through understanding. It promotes awareness of war through an extensive historical collection of relics, a multitude of dioramas and hundreds of historical accounts concerning all military conflicts that common Australian soldiers have been associated with. As a result an illustration of actual warfare is presented, not a romanticised ideal so often related to military conflict. Through this, the memorial establishes remembrance which in turn commemorates those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Yet the memorial also honours those that offered their lives through both symbolism, which is evident in all buildings, and the commemorative area.

Throughout his extensive travels throughout battlefields of Europe and Gallipoli as Australia’s official war correspondent throughout the First World War, Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean gained an insight to the life of a fighter, be he a common soldier or high ranking General. With this knowledge he established a dream to construct a war memorial that would, ‘explain to Australians what their men had done and what they experienced in the war.’  With this vision he asked not historians, but the soldiers themselves to amass relics that they found suitable in representing the war. By the Great War’s end, tonnes of material were shipped back to Australia, and they formed the backbone in conveying the history of Australia’s involvement in war. Yet Bean, often recognised as the father of Australia’s National military museum, aimed to also ‘set aside a place in Australia where families and friends could grieve for those buried in places far away.’ In achieving this, he intended to recognise all men that gave the ultimate sacrifice, placing them all as equals no matter what rank, achievement or background. These goals of Bean have become a reality, and the Australian War Memorial continues this by continuously improving methods in upholding those standards.

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Many of the artefacts brought back to Australia from overseas reside in the Australian War Memorial as a medium in both furthering the understanding and commemorating the qualities exercised by the soldiers of Australia across all military conflicts. These relics are those that Bean described as ‘the kind that would stir me to the marrow,’ and this is most likely due to the fact that they capture the moment and tell a detailed and unique story of their own. By doing this, an image of what life throughout the war was like is fashioned. The War Memorial’s demand and ...

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