A national memorial is to be erected to the estimated 9000 New Zealanders killed in the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Despite the devastating impact of the pandemic, which in a matter of weeks killed half as many New Zealanders as were killed in World War 1, very few memorials to the pandemic dead exist.
That is about to change, and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage is in the process of finalising details of a memorial, which is intended to be set up in Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington in February.Disasters marked with national memorials include the Canterbury earthquakes and the Tangiwai rail disaster, while a memorial to the Erebus air crash is now in progress.
There was no policy on what kind of disaster warranted national recognition, but it had been recognised there was a lack of memorials marking the pandemic, acting manager commemorations at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, Sarah Ingram, said.
"A disaster has to really rupture the fabric of the nation if you like, to have that degree of national acknowledgement.
"Far and way the biggest civic, non-military loss of life was the pandemic, and we considered that was something which warranted national memorialisation around the time of the [WW1] centenary," Mrs Ingram said.
The ministry proposed a national memorial to the Government, which accepted the idea. Details of the memorial were being finalised, but with the close link between the world war and the spread of the pandemic, placing it in Pukeahu National War Memorial Park was deemed appropriate, Mrs Ingram said.
"It will be near the education centre, where we will be able to make much of it as part of our education programme."
The Ministry of Health was also involved in the commemoration plans and information would be displayed on preparations for a modern-day pandemic, she said.
Ministry of Culture and Heritage chief historian Neill Atkinson said no-one really knew why there were so few memorials to the pandemic.
Suggestions included a reluctance to acknowledge disease, the already existing move to build war memorials drowning out any attempt to build a pandemic memorial, and a belief that existing individual graves would fit the purpose.
"People setting up war memorials may have done so because they thought the war was a worthwhile endeavour which should be remembered, or because they wanted to make some sort of statement about peace or freedom or what the war was about," he said.
"With a disease outbreak, other than a wish to raise awareness, it’s a difficult one ... Perhaps there was only so much commemorative energy people had in 1919, 1920."
