Scars on the Heart

On Friday four year ten classes visited the Auckland War Memorial Museum. We went there because our term topic for social science is Conflict- into history, and we are studying the First World War.
I learnt a lot from this visit, for example, I didn't know that Auckland Museum is primarily a war memorial museum.
I enjoyed the trip, as I said, I learnt quite a bit, but I was a bit effected by the two sections of Scars on the Heart and the Hall of Memories.
We started in the WW1 section and everything was fine but then it just kept going. I was surrounded by war. All the death and violence, all these mistakes that it seems no one is learning from.
I stood in the simulation trenches, it was dark and ominous, and as the recording of howling wind and gun fire repeated the walls seemed to be pressing in.
A lot of the students around me were laughing and shouting; running around.
How could they not get it, my thoughts screamed.
I rounded the corner, heading towards the Hall of Memories and was confronted with a picture of white crosses, stretching forever into the ebony back drop.
Plain, white crosses, each one marking a candle of life, now extinguished, one after another...
Above this picture, was one, gold plated word:
Remember
It was when my eyes passed over this word that a simultaneous wave of sadness and inarticulate emotion passed over me.
For the second time in as many weeks, a girl who vowed never to cry in public, was on the verge of tears again.
My eyes were gazing, swimming in the black back drop when the sharp, intrusive sequel of an alarm broke through my thoughts.
Someone had had the audacity to rattle a case of a gun display.
In was sickened. Didn't anyone else care?
I walked, feeling detached, to sit on a hard bench in the Hall.
The white walls were covered in names, more dead soldiers. And they were from the Auckland area only. My thoughts moved to what the memorials in Europe in America and Europe must be.
I rough voice pulled me back to reality.
A boy had called across the room, and a teacher had told him off:
'This is silent place,' she chastised, 'respect, young man.'
'Whatever,' he grunted as he headed off, towards his friends who were jostling each other, leaning against the names of the men who had died so they could live in freedom.
I raised my head, full of a mixture of disgust and the ever pressing sadness.
A blank wall greeted me.

May these panels never be filled

The room was too hot, the silence to pressing, and everyone's words were shallow and echoed in my mind.

I steeled myself against Hitler's face as he scowled out from a poster in the WW2 section.
I tried my best to just do my work and not think too much.
As I passed the bright blue walls of the UN display, though, I must admit, my spirits lifted a little.

All those men died, fighting for their country, so we could enjoy a free life.
So that war wouldn't shatter the surface of the globe again.
I felt determined to make a difference, I still do.

Eventually, we walked out into the fresh air and I breathed deeply.

So, I hope you see what I mean.
I learnt a lot from our trip to the museum, and not just from the panels on the walls.

''The only mistake is one from which you do not learn'' -Gandhi