Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Claire Horton

Creator

Claire Horton

Claire Horton CBE is the director general at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Memory: South African Native Labour Corps members who died when the SS Mendi sank, have been remembered, and 381 people, most of them from the corps, are buried in the military cemetery in Arques-la-Bataille, France. But the names and stories of other South Africans and those of hundreds of thousands from Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Malawi have been forgotten. Photo: Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images
AFRICA

War memorials, a cautionary memory bank for peace

South Africa’s part in World War I shows the importance of collective memory in recalling the ignored names of those who died in service

  • Claire Horton
5 min read