Unbroken Ties

An exhibition — called Passchendaele: the Belgians Have Not Forgotten — commemorating New Zealand lives lost on Flanders soil opens in Wellington on March 6 in the Hall of Memories at Wellington’s National War Memorial. The exhibition has been developed by the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 and aims to bring the devastating battles for the Western Front, where losses far outweighed those at Gallipoli, back into the national conscience. In four hours on one day alone, October 12, 1917, New Zealand forces suffered 2700 casualties, including 845 fatalities, trying to capture the Bellevue Heights on the outskirts of Passchendaele. They were slaughtered and had to be withdrawn. It took two days to clear the battlefield of bodies. Passchendaele Museum Curator, Franky Bostyn says the people of Flanders and, more widely, the people of Belgium have never forgotten the New Zealand sacrifice. “In 1917 your country left an important part of its history here in Flanders, not only the events, but also the men, the men are all here, a part of our land,” Bostyn says. After Wellington, the exhibition will tour Christchurch, Dunedin, Featherston, Waiouru and Auckland.