Sacrifice

I went to the NSW War Memorial in Hyde Park today with my son. I'd never been there before. It was quite beautiful.

Inside it is an amazing sculpture called 'Sacrifice'. (see picture)
So many of the memorials and information we find on war is all about the soldiers who fought and didn't make it home or did return. But not this memorial.

The following extract from http://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/memorial_features/sacrifice describes it really well.

"Sacrifice - This is the central motif of the Memorial's design. It comprises 'the recumbent form of an Anzac whose soul has passed to the Great Beyond, and whose body, borne aloft on a shield by his best beloved - mother, sister, wife and child - is laid there as a symbol of that spirit which inspired him in life, the spirit of Courage, Endurance and Sacrifice'. Hoff's sculpture addresses the issue of an Australian identity based on its (and his) experience of war, a virile and modern nation prepared to sacrifice its best in an appalling but necessary cause - the survival of the country/race.

'Thousands of women, although not directly engaged in war activities, lost all that was dear them - sons they had borne and reared, husbands, fathers of their children, friends, lovers.

There was no acknowledgement of them in casualty lists of wounded, maimed and killed. They endured all men's sacrifice quietly'.

'In this spirit I have shown them, carrying their load, the sacrifice of their menfolk.'

I think this sculpture descibes not only war and it's effects but the reality of life as a woman choosing to serve her man joyfully and sacrifically.