WAR GRAVES

Hokitika Guardian, 15 October 1930, Page 4

WAR GRAVES

American war dead in France he i n beautiful tranquil cemeteries, each with a marble tombstone; British nnd French graves are equally well taken;; care of, grouped around some commemorative monument. Only the German graves with their weather-eaten wooden crosses, unchanged since the day when they were first put up, are not looked, after. As far as Belgium i a concerned tills is going to change. A gUted 'German sculptress, Frau liaethe, Killwitz, has been asked to erect A monument -near Langemarck, whera that impetuous regiment of young. German students whb rushed into battle without sufficient training, lies in the mud of Flanders these many years. One of her own sons lies buried there. The monument will show two persons, a father and a mother, bent over a grave. Frau Killwitz is being criticised beenuse her monument will not sufficiently express a protest againstf war. But she says she merely wanted! to express the real presence of parents near their children. They are seeking some consolation in being near them. To these parents, forever crushed by grief, there is no protest; all they can do is to be silent. Perhaps there lies in the conception of Frau Killwitz a very strong protest; the old bent over the graves of the young in an'unending night of sorrow which no dawn will follow.