The NZ Memorial Museum Trust is proud to be able to present New Zealand’s first permanent War Memorial Museum in Europe which is to be inaugurated in LE QUESNOY, France, on November 4 this year on the 100th Anniversary of the battle to liberate the town by NEW ZEALAND forces.
On November 4, 1918, a New Zealand force scaled the ancient ramparts surrounding the town of Le Quesnoy in Northern France. More than 2000 enemy troops were stationed in the town, but to use artillery on the Germans would have incurred French casualties as well as German. Plus, it was suspected that Allied prisoners of war could be within the town, so it was decided to climb the ramparts. The battle that ensued took 142 New Zealand lives and wounded 375 and left 43 German dead and 2,000 German prisoners were taken. None of the townspeople were killed.
The War Memorial Museum Trust has purchased the former mayor’s residence as a future site for Trust’s Le Quesnoy museum, with attached motel-type accommodation for visitors.
The Museum’s aim is to commemorate all New Zealanders who fought on the Western Front across both World Wars, via arresting multi-media exhibitions. It will be a home for Kiwis visiting Europe as well as a fascinating place to visit for tourists and French citizens. NZ is currently the only Commonwealth country without a memorial museum on the Western Front.
The building is to be inaugurated on 4 November this year on the anniversary of the town’s liberation. Some 600 people will be in attendance – many of them descendants of the liberating New Zealand troops.
Buddy Mikaere, Trustee of the New Zealand War Memorial Museum Trust, has been working tirelessly towards the establishment of the museum.
“In the year the of the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War 1 the NZWMM Trust has made some bold steps towards the establishment of a museum in the small northern France town of Le Quesnoy. The town was liberated on 4 November 1918 in the last major action involving our troops with peace being declared 7 days later, on 11 November. Some 142 New Zealand soldiers died liberating the town, but what makes the liberation stand out is that not one civilian was killed, and the town was left virtually unmarked. For these reasons Kiwis are revered in the town and remembered to this day.
“The museum at Le Quesnoy will give us the same status that all the other allied countries enjoy with their own special places in northern France. We think that like Gallipoli it will become a place where for young Kiwis travelling abroad it will be part of their rites of passage. For others, it will be a place of quiet contemplation and remembrance of our countrymen who died in the Great War and in WW11. So far, the Trust has raised over $1.5m which has purchased the building and allowed the refurbishment programme to get underway. But there is some distance to go to get it to a point where exhibitions are mounted, and the museum properly established. The Trust is seeking donations to allow the Museum work to progress and we look to the people of New Zealand for support in achieving this worthwhile commemorative effort.”
Donations can be made here.
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