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Cenotaph Stories

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Cenotaph Stories

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Commemoration

  • Lest We Forget Poetry Competition 2026

    Online Cenotaph Staff

    The final Lest We Forget poetry competition took place on Anzac Day 2026. For 20 years, the competition has provided a way for our community to pause, reflect, and mark Anzac Day together. Befitting the final year, the theme was He Ara Whakamua – Pathways Forward, inviting writers to look toward the future as well as the past. Here, our finalists read their winning poems.

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  • Waitaki Boys' Hall of Memories

    Martin Edmond
    Guest contributor

    Written to accompany a photograph by Laurence Aberhart, Martin Edmond’s essay reflects on the Hall of Memories at Waitaki Boys’ High School as both a working school space and war memorial. The image, gifted by the Waitaki Old Boys to Auckland Museum, reinforces the Hall as a place where memory endures in the absence of those commemorated.

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  • From Hastings to Hollywood: Nola Luxford

    Sophie Elborough
    Collection Technician - Research Support

    Nola Luxford was a New Zealand-born actress who built a remarkable career as a writer and pioneering broadcaster before founding the Anzac Club in New York City during World War II. Her fundraising and wartime radio broadcasts earned her the title "Angel of the Anzacs".

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  • Lest We Forget Poetry Competition: Resilient Bonds

    Online Cenotaph Staff

    Our annual Lest We Forget poetry competition was held in Hall of Memories II on Anzac Day. The 2025 theme, Resilient Bonds: War’s Human Legacy, called for poems that explored the lasting relationships forged in times of conflict—connections that span generations, geography, and loss. Here are our finalists reading their winning poems.

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  • Leave No One Behind: Walter von Schramm and the Graves Registration Unit

    Matthew Nickless
    Collection Technician - Research Support

    The Graves Registration Unit is one of the lesser known units of World War II. Through the war diary of its commanding officer, Walter von Schramm, we look at the role of that unit, and how it fit into the wider New Zealand war effort.

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  • Remembering the Fallen: Memorials and Memory in post-War New Zealand

    Matthew Nickless
    Collection Technician - Research Support

    In towns and cities across Aotearoa New Zealand, war memorials stand as quiet witnesses to sacrifice, loss, and remembrance. The story of a lamp-post in Rakaia, gifted in memory of one young soldier, reminds us of the deeply personal motives behind these public memorials.

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  • From Service to Sports: The journeys of New Zealand's Veteran Olympians

    Madeleine Williamson
    Collection Access Librarian

    From military service to the world stage, New Zealand's veteran Olympians exemplify resilience and dedication. Fifteen New Zealand military veterans have had the privilege of representing New Zealand at the Olympics. Let’s celebrate their stories as we reignite the Olympic flame.

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  • 25 Years of Online Cenotaph

    Victoria Passau
    Online Cenotaph and Enquiry Services Manager

    Online Cenotaph has been commemorating the experiences of Aotearoa New Zealand’s military service for more than 25 years. Online Cenotaph is a collection of data relating to Aotearoa New Zealand’s operational military service including personal, biographical, demographic, social and military information. But it is much more than a collection of datapoints.

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  • Achille Carlier, Mayor of Le Quesnoy during the First World War

    Dr Nathalie Philippe, Senior Lecturer University of Waikato, French

    When New Zealanders troops liberated the fortified town of Le Quesnoy on 4 November 1918, the elected mayor of Le Quesnoy was nowhere to be seen. The inhabitants of Le Quesnoy would have to wait for the Armistice to be able to see their mayor once again. So what had happened to Achille Carlier during the war?

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  • Sharing your stories

    May-September 2022
    Nelson Bennett, Collection Technician Research Support

    This article is part of an ongoing series in which we highlight the amazing contributions we receive at Online Cenotaph. The variety and quality of material that is contributed to records is astonishing and this is our opportunity to highlight just a few examples from May to September of 2022.

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