"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."
With these few words from the poem "For the Fallen" by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon we welcome you to the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial. This Unique Memorial was opened on the 6th February 2004 to recognise and remember those Australians who became Prisoners of War during the Wars of the 20th Century.
The Memorial symbolises that all Australian prisoners embarked to serve away from their homeland and acknowledges the hardship, deprivation, brutality, starvation and disease endured by Prisoners of War during their capture and the scars many continued to endure upon their repatriation to Australia.
In these magnificent Botanical Gardens the Memorial is a place of quite reflection and a place to remember loved ones and to mourn those 8,600 Prisoners of War that died in captivity and remain buried on foreign shores.
Definition
What is a Prisoner of War?
The Trustees of the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial have defined a Prisoner of War to be a person who was captured by a common enemy and/or interned in a neutral or non-combatant country. A Prisoner is a person who has lost personal privileges, suffers depravation of liberty or is unable to return home or dies in captivity.
