Transcript - Secondary Virtually There



Virtually there - a visit to the Australian War Memorial for secondary studentsNarrated by Al Bridges and Joanna TaplinIntroductionAl: Welcome to a very special place … here, in the heart of our nation’s capital.We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Ngunnawal people, and pay our respects to their elders past and present. This is a place to remember all Australians who have served this country in time of war. This is the Australian War Memorial.The story of the Memorial began with this man: Charles Bean. He was there when Australia went to war in 1914. He was there with the Anzacs when they landed on Gallipoli. He was there in the mud and devastation of the Western Front. Charles Bean was not a soldier—his job was to write. But he realised there are some things you can’t put into words.When Charles returned home, he left behind more than 60,000 Australians who had died in the fighting. He wanted to build a ‘memorial museum’ so that Australians could remember, and see for themselves what had happened. Al: G’day folks, my name’s Al. I’m looking forward to spending a little time with you today, talking about the Australian War Memorial.Joanna: Thanks Al, my name’s Joanna. Al and I are both members of the Education team here at the Memorial. Al is also a veteran who served in Vietnam, and we’re really grateful for your expertise today Al. The Australian War Memorial has three main roles. It is an archive, holding many records relating to wartime service. It is also a place of commemoration, and it is a museum. The Memorial has a very large collection relating to Australia’s wartime and peacekeeping service. We look after them on behalf of all Australians. Every object, photograph, work of art, and document in the collection is a source which allows us to understand the stories of all the people who have served in conflicts for Australia. Al: For example, this helicopter in the galleries is one that I flew with the Royal Australian Air Force in Vietnam, over 50 years ago. The Australian War Memorial reminds us of our shared past – our culture of looking out for others. That is why it is so important that we learn from that past, because it is our inheritance; it points the way to the future.First World WarAl: Let’s start our tour today in the Gallipoli Gallery, and consider why curators have chosen these objects and images to tell the story of that campaign.After the footage:Joanna: This is one of the first things that visitors see when they arrive. It’s actually a bullet-damaged landing boat. Australian troops used boats like these to travel from their ships to the shore of Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915. This is a special date that we remember every year on Anzac Day.One other collection item you might have noticed is a form of political advertising called propaganda. You might consider the purpose of posters like this. Who was it targeting? Who was it not targeting, and why? Why might such posters have been necessary? Another collection item in this space is quite well-known; it is a painting called “Anzac the Landing 1915”. Let’s cross to Al who can tell us a bit more about it.A: It was painted by George Lambert, an Official War Artist whose job was to produce paintings of events in the First World War for the Memorial. This one was produced in 1920 and first shown to the public at the Australian War Museum in Melbourne on Anzac Day in 1922, almost four years after the Armistice that ended the war. We know that more than 14,000 visitors saw the painting during that first week in Melbourne, and most of the people who saw it were returned soldiers, their family and friends. George Lambert knew who his audience would be. How do you think this influenced what he painted? It’s a large painting, almost four metres wide. Perhaps you can consider why the artist wanted to create this work on such a large scale?Is it an accurate portrayal of the events of 25 of April 1915? Well, yes and no. At the time, the purpose of a “history painting” like this was to create for the viewer an emotional response – as well as being a historical representation. Compared with the actual landscape, the artwork is similar – although the scale has been adjusted to make room for more elements in the scene. There are features of the painting that are not technically correct. Nearly all of the soldiers are shown wearing slouch hats, whereas they wore a mixture of both caps and hats. Lambert said he featured slouch hats to give a uniquely “Australian”character. Knowing his intention here changes our understanding of the purpose of the artwork. Looking at a mix of sources from the time, such as diaries or photographs taken on 25 April, and comparing those with the artwork, can help us to gain a more accurate understanding of the events. For example, this photo was taken by Charles Bean on that morning. It shows the men of the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion climbing from a troopship into a smaller boat, in preparation for the landing at Anzac Cove. Here we can see that not everyone is wearing a slouch hat. But this is just one group of the Australian soldiers. The campaign had cost of tens of thousands of lives, including more than 86,000 from the Ottoman Empire. More than 8,000 Australians died on Gallipoli after eight months of relentless fighting with few military gains. The objectives of the campaign which included securing the Dardanelles Strait, then capturing the Turkish capital, were not achieved. Perhaps you might like to discuss why the Gallipoli campaign is studied and commemorated so strongly in Australia, even though it was an allied failure.The war had another three long years to go, predominantly on the Western Front in France and Belgium, where the number of Australian losses increased to approximately 45,000. Australians were also serving in the desert campaigns in Sinai Palestine. Joanna: As we take a quick look through the Western Front galleries, use the exhibits to consider why the casualty rates increased so rapidly in this theatre of war.After the footage:Joanna: Moving through the Western Front galleries, perhaps you thought about the changing military technologies, or maybe the battle tactics, perhaps you thought about the role of medics and nurses – or even the environmental challenges faced by those who were serving in the trenches and behind the lines. You may have noticed that the Memorial has dioramas in the collection. These help give us an understanding of what it would have been like to serve in these places during the war.I’d like to draw your attention to the diorama showing the battle of Bullecourt in France, April 1917. This diorama was created by artists Leslie Bowles and Louis McCubbin in 1930. As a class, you might like to make a list of everything that the diorama can tell us about this battle. Look at the details, from the background art, to the uniforms, to the trench system.I would now like you to think about things that the diorama doesn’t tell us. You can probably brainstorm many ideas, but some examples include:?How many people died??Were the British tanks used in this battle effective? ?What did the battlefield sound like for the soldiers??Who were the people who served there? To get a better understanding of a battle, it can be helpful to delve into the personal stories of those who were there. Al is going to share just one story with you. We would like to provide a warning that we are about to show a photograph of an Aboriginal serviceman who has since died.Al: This is Douglas Grant. He was born in a remote Aboriginal community in Far North Queensland, but grew up with a Scottish family, after his family and community were killed in frontier violence. Robert and Elizabeth Grant relocated to Sydney with Douglas, and their biological son Henry. Douglas was working on a station as a wool classer when the war broke out. He enlisted in early 1916, despite rules of the time excluding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from signing up. The reasoning was that they were not of European origin, and were not considered Australian citizens. Douglas had to get special permission from the government to travel overseas and eventually made his way to France.At the first battle of Bullecourt, Douglas was captured and became a prisoner of the Germans. Among the prisoners, it was an important job for one person to communicate with the Red Cross, requesting and then distributing supplies that would help the prisoners cope with the conditions and the isolation. The prisoners nominated Douglas for this role. What does this tell you about how Douglas was perceived by his comrades? He survived and returned home to Australia in 1919. He may have been considered an equal on the battlefield, but he returned home to an unequal society, where rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had not changed. You can read more about Douglas Grant on our website.Joanna: So far we’ve seen a range of sources that the Memorial has; works of art, dioramas, and letters. Historians here at the Memorial rely on a range of sources to research and tell the stories of Australians. Our head of Military History, Dr Karl James, would now like to share some thoughts with you regarding your own research using sources.Karl: My name’s Dr Karl James and I’m an historian here at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and I specialise in looking at Australia’s involvement during the Second World War. As a military historian, we’re really public historians, which means we help facilitate people looking into their own research and family history, also looking at Australia’s military units; what the Army did, what the Airforce did, and what the Navy did, in the First and Second World Wars. We then we put those research notes and individual stories together. We write books, we do media interviews, we do Podcasts and we also contribute to major exhibitions.We use a range of different sources when we we’re trying to look into someone’s family history. Sometimes we use what we call primary sources; these are archival letters and documents that were written at the time; so they were written during the war and we will use that type of primary material. We also use what is called secondary sources; books, magazine articles and other material such as oral history interviews where people have gone back and recorded the wartime experiences of their mothers, grandmothers or great-grandfathers. We use a whole of range of different sources and we put them together. There is a lot of detective work and it needs patience, and sometimes it can be a little frustrating and confusing, and sometimes we don’t always know the answers.The ability to think critically about sources is one of the key skills of a historian. Just because you may read something on the internet or someone tells you something, doesn’t always necessarily mean that it’s true. Now, they may not be trying to deliberately mislead you, but what a good historian is able to do is to look at the source material itself. So, if in doubt try to go back to the primary source material, the documents that were produced at the time such as letters and diaries, and other official records. Then you need to cross-examine that material with the other works that are around. So, you look at when was it produced, and if you can, think what was the intent of the person who wrote this material in the first place? Another trick or another great clue is if you’re looking at a book or an article, what sources did they cite? When you have a book, at the end of the book they should have a bibliography which lists all of the different books and archival material which that author used to help put together that story. And you can sometimes follow in their archaeological or historical footprints and that will help inform you in your own research. History is all about asking new questions and thinking about old events in the past in different ways. So good luck with your research. Now back to you in the studio. Joanna: Thanks Karl. I think it’s important to note that sometimes you might hit dead ends in your research, or maybe at other times, you may find differing perspectives. Treaty of VersaillesAl: Let’s explore that by having a look at another famous piece of art we have in the War Memorial’s collection.In an effort to establish lasting peace after the First World War, representatives from many different countries created five peace treaties. The one concerning peace with Germany was called the Treaty of Versailles. This was signed on the 28th of June 1919. This painting by Joseph Finnemore commemorates the signing. Those present included the President of the United States of America, the German Foreign Minister, the British and French Prime Ministers, and Australia’s own Prime Minister, Billy Hughes – who at one point in negotiations declared that he was there to “represent 60,000 dead”. Looking at the people in the room, what demographic do they represent? Are there young people present, women, or people of colour? Whose perspective is being represented? Perhaps you could look at this painting from the German point of view. This treaty resulted in major sanctions on Germany, such as disarmament, surrender of various territories, and payment of huge sums of money to the allies. I wonder how German civilians felt about this moment in history. You can find out more about the people in this painting in a podcast on our website called Collected. While the Treaty of Versailles was seen as a symbol of hope at the time, we now know that it was a contributing factor to the start of the Second World War with Germany. You might like to investigate how the treaty links to both the First and Second World Wars.Second World WarAl: On 3 September 1939, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the beginning of Australia’s participation in the Second World War, only 21 years after the end of the Great War. Almost a million Australians served in the war, in campaigns against Germany and Italy in Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa – as well as against Japan in south-east Asia and other areas in the Pacific.Joanna: With many of Australia’s men heading off to war, women joined the military and civilian workforces in unprecedented numbers. They also continued their service in the nursing profession, operating in countries around the world from the start of the Second World War.After footage:From October 1942, nurses were posted to military hospitals in New Guinea to treat hundreds of sick and wounded soldiers, many from the Kokoda and Buna campaigns against the Japanese. In May 1943 the hospital ship Centaur set out from Sydney for its second voyage to New Guinea, to drop off supplies and staff, and bring patients back to hospitals in Australia. Sister Ellen Savage was one of the 12 nurses on board, recently appointed to the ship’s medical staff. In the early hours of the 14th of May, the Centaur was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, near Stradbroke Island. With a huge hole in the hull, and on fire, the ship sank in minutes. As the Centaur was sinking, Ellen – still in her pyjamas – jumped overboard. Ellen and the others survivors spent more than 30 hours on life-rafts, with many wounded. Ellen herself was badly hurt but concealed her injuries and assisted others. She started a sing-along to raise everyone’s spirits until help came. They were eventually rescued by an American ship, the USS Mugford. Ellen was the only nurse to survive. Of the 330 people on board; only 64 survived the attack and sinking. Those who died are remembered through this exhibit, and on the Roll of Honour, here at the Australian War Memorial.And while this was happening in our region, millions were dying overseas.The HolocaustJoanna: In the years leading up to the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party targeted Jewish communities in Germany – boycotting their businesses, destroying synagogues and taking Jewish men into custody. With the outbreak of war in 1939, more Jewish communities fell under German occupation in conquered territories. From 1942 Hitler’s regime set about systematically killing Europe’s Jews – men, women and children. Although there is no exact figure for the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, it is believed to be more than six million. Statistics like this are difficult to comprehend.A new display within the Second World War gallery contains stories of witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust, who later made new lives in Australia. One of them is of Henryka Shaw. This dress was made for Henryka by fellow concentration camp inmates, using scavenged material. She wore this when she finally walked out of her last camp at Mauthausen in 1945 after it was liberated. In earlier interviews she recalled, “On our arrival at Auschwitz, we were herded out of the trains like animals … we were somewhere close to the border between life and death.” The women were told to undress and form a line. When Henryka reached the front of the line, she was told to go left, and found herself among old women – who she suspected were destined for the gas chambers. She slipped back into the selection line. “I was thinking, if I get through, I get through. If I don’t, I have lost nothing.” This time, Henryka was told to go right. She was tattooed with her camp number, A-26538, and moved into the camp complex. In all, she survived five different concentration camps.This photo was taken in the Bergen-Belsen camp and shows the living conditions in the female section soon after the camp’s liberation.Here is the information booklet and identity card issued to Henryka in 1947 before she travelled to a displaced persons camp in Austria. It lists the concentration camps that Henryka had survived.Around 30,000 Jews are believed to have found a new home in Australia after the war. Henryka was one of them, emigrating here in 1953 with her dress packed in a suitcase. Why did she bring it with her? What might it have represented?Henryka’s dress came on display at the Memorial in February 2020, kindly loaned by her family, who were here for the launch. While they were here, one of Henryka’s daughters, Naomi, said:The dress was something that my mother hung onto for the rest of her life … it would sit in the cupboard with her silk blouses and her beautiful shoes … For many years, she wouldn't tell any stories … she couldn't ever bring herself to talk about it … but when she was writing her book in 2005, she showed me the dress and said, 'Please look after it – this is the dress I walked out of the camps in. Henryka passed away in 2011, aged 84. Why might Henryka’s family have loaned the dress to the Memorial for display? What sources have been used to piece together Henryka’s story? What other sources might there be? How could you find them?Commemorative AreaAl: True to Charles Bean’s vision, the Memorial has never stopped collecting the objects and records that tell the story of our past. He wanted the Memorial to be more than a museum though: he also wanted it to be a place of remembrance. Here in the Commemorative Area, you can see the Eternal Flame in the Pool of Reflection.The Roll of Honour contains the names of more than 102,000 people who have died as a result of their service. Inside the Hall of Memory, the walls are lined with more than 6 million mosaic tiles, and you can see 15 stained glass windows. Here too is the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. This man died in the First World War, but was laid to rest here at the Memorial on Remembrance Day in 1993. He was brought here from a battlefield cemetery in France. Why might there be someone buried here whose identity is unknown? Who do you think an unknown soldier represents?Many visitors choose to place a poppy on the tomb. But of course not everybody can travel to Canberra to visit the Australian War Memorial. Did you know that there are memorials all over the country, dedicated to those who have served and died in a number of conflicts, over more than a hundred years? There is a website called Places of Pride, where the public can add images of memorials from their town to a national database. These images could be of a statue, an obelisk, honour boards, or even trees. This tree is from the Avenue of Honour in Ballarat. After the First World War, trees were planted – and each had a plaque, dedicated to people from the town who had served. As you can see, the plaque has almost been lost, as the tree has continued to grow for more than 100 years.Joanna: Take a moment to think about the types of people who visit a war memorial. For example, we have international visitors, children, families who have lost loved ones, and VIPs. This place is also for veterans – those who have served in the past, and those who continue to serve. Sometimes the Memorial can be upsetting for our veterans, and sometimes it brings comfort.Interview with Al BridgesJoanna: We are very lucky to have Al Bridges with us today, who is a veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force. Al, would it be ok if I asked you some questions about your experiences? Al: Of course, Jo, yes!Joanna: To start off with Al, why did you enlist?Al: What a good question! Why did I enlist? Well, you know, I wanted a job, I needed a job, I always loved flying so I thought well if I get to learn how to fly I can go to the airlines and earn big bucks! That wasn’t going to be because I couldn’t afford to do that. So, I went to the Airforce. Airforce pays you while you’re learning to fly which was rather good. Then went on for basically a quarter of a century with the Airforce flying, and never wanted to leave. It was good. Joanna: Al, what were some of the challenges you faced?Al: Challenges. I guess there were plenty of challenges over the years. You might think that Vietnam would have been one, because Vietnam was just starting up at that time but as a young fella, I really didn’t think about Vietnam and I certainly didn’t expect to be sent there so early on. So for me the challenges were being sent to Vietnam but having to leave my fiancée at home – that was tough, very tough for both of us. We had a second challenge as well because in the Airforce and indeed in the Australian Defence Force, it’s like a great big family really; you have good and bad, and all sorts of things. And after 25 years I had to leave, I was getting too old! So, that was a really tough time leaving the Airforce. I was lucky, the training that the Airforce had given me allowed me to get an excellent job after I left. Joanna: Al, and lastly, what were some of your favourite memories of your time serving for Australia?Al: Favourite memories, well of course I’ve done a lot of overseas travel but my favourite memories are all within Australia. I love this country. I look at our past which goes back 60,000 years and I have spent time helping people, out there in the bush with bushfire relief, flood relief, drought relief. That sort of work, the type of flying I was doing involved a lot of that and I really loved doing that. So my fondest memories are very much about Australia, the time we spent together, the people that we have here and that’s really why I love to do what I’m doing now, and encouraging the people who are listening to us today to remember all Australians and to do what they can for our country. Joanna: Thanks Al, thank you so much for your time today. Al: Thank you Jo.Joanna: We have had a brief look through the galleries, to see how collection material can help us to explore history. So much of our collection has also been digitised and is available for you to view online, .au/learn .Joanna: We hope that you might be able to visit us here in Canberra one day.Al: And thank you folks for giving us your time today. We’ve really enjoyed it and we look forward to seeing you one day here in Canberra. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download