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Cenotaph Stories

  • Celebrating two years of citizen research with Online Cenotaph

    We mark the second anniversary of Online Cenotaph by celebrating the achievements of one of our most prolific contributors.

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  • Staying connected

    Charlotte Macdonald
    History, Victoria University of Wellington

    In 2020 we are learning anew what distance and separation means. Charlotte Macdonald shows us that while distance in war time or distance to stop the spread of disease are two different reasons for separation but in both we turn to all the tools we have to stay connected, to save life as well as lives.

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  • I am the process not the product

    Dina Jezdic
    Contemporary Reflections Grant Recipient

    Dina Jezdic reflects on her experiences as a child leaving Belgrade and arriving in New Zealand, and how New Zealand's first Covid-19 lock down transported her mind back to memories of Belgrade, and those times of constant awareness of politics and uncertainty.

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  • Back in my day, flour was a precious commodity!

    FotuoSamoa Jody Jackson-Becerra
    Contemporary Reflections Grant Recipient

    "Gather around tamaiti, because I have a story to tell." FotuoSamoa Jody Jackson-Becerra shares a talatu’u, a story about a time, when everything changed. The year was 2020.

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  • An Invisible History: Wāhine Māori in the Air Force during World War II

    By Stacey Fraser and Angela Wanhalla (Kāi Tahu)
    History Programme, University of Otago

    'The Style for you is Air Force Blue' was the recruitment tag-line for the New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Air Force, established on the 16th January 1941. In this article Angela Wanhalla and Stacey Fraser from University of Otago look at the formation of the WAAFs and Wāhine Māori who served in the Air Force during the Second World War, who's history has largely been invisible.

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  • Māori Mobilisation: Wartime, Peacetime, Covid-19-time

    Dr Aroha Harris
    University of Auckland, History Department

    Historically, major crises – whether war or disease – that took and disrupted far too many lives also generated unreservedly Māori responses, often paying attention to whānau and community health and wellbeing. Dr Aroha Harris ponders iwi Māori capacity to mobilise throughout the 20th and 21st Century.

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  • Life on the curve: stories of essential workers in times of war

    Virginia Gow
    Contemporary Reflections Grant Recipient

    Virginia Gow comes from a family of medical specialists and essential health workers, some who served in the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic, allows for an interesting outsider-insider vantage point on the concept that our fight against Covid-19 has been like a war.

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  • Reflections in the Port: Pandemics & the Moana Cosmopolitan

    Emily Parr
    Contemporary Reflections Grant Recipient

    Emily Parr reflects on the fifty three years that have passed between her and her great-great-grandmother; Louisa Kronfeld, and the stories and experiences that connect them across the Moananui-a-Kiwa.

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  • Names not numbers

    Christopher Pugsley
    Lieutenant Colonel (Retired), ONZM, DPhil, FRHistS

    Christopher Pugsley, reflects on the upcoming Anzac Day in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how we still remember those who were killed during war and those returned service men and women from all conflicts.

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  • Centenary of the Anzac Day Act

    Dr Boxer’s Service and the Making of Anzac Day
    Dr Stephen Clarke, Making History Ltd.

    100 years ago Anzac Day 1920 — the fifth anniversary of Gallipoli — was declared the most solemn and impressive to date. Unlike the spontaneous first Anzac Day in 1916, and the muddled observances that followed, this was the result of a conscious effort to make Anzac Day 1920 a sacred day.

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