Tag: memorial

C.Y. O’Connor Horse and Rider

Nathan

Charles Yelverton O’Connor (11 January 1843 – 10 March 1902) was an Irish-born engineer who found his greatest achievements in Australia, before tragically committed suicide. His life has been commemorated in monuments across Australia, but his death is remembered by a bronze horse and rider who peek out of the waves off the coast of the beach where he died. Born at Gravelmount, Castletown, Meath, Ireland, in 1865 he migrated to New Zealand, where he worked initially on the locating and survey of a route for the first dray and…

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#September 10, 1547: Battle of Pinkie Cleugh between English and Scottish forces

Robin

On this day, September 10, 1547, along the banks of the River Esk, a massive battle occurred that pitted Scottish and English forces in what has been called the first modern conflict recorded on the British Isles. The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, also known as the Rough Wooing, is considered one of the largest battles ever fought on Scottish soil, but It’s also viewed as one of the defining battles of the medieval English-Scottish conflict. The Scottish suffered a heavy defeat, in a day now forever known as “Black Friday”.…

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Steilneset Memorial: a suggestive monument to the victims of the 17th century Norwegian witch trials

Nathan

On the stark, barren coast of the Barents Sea in Vardø, Norway, there are pair of modern but impact structures known collectively as the Steilneset Memorial which honors the memories of the dozens of people killed during the 17th-century Vardø witch trials. In the seventeenth century, a series of witch trials occurred in Norway, of which the Vardø witch trials were among the most brutal. Over a hundred people were tried for witchcraft, with 77 women and 14 men being burned at the stake. The northern district of Finnmark, within…

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Shoes on the Danube Promenade: the Holocaust Memorial of the Jews of Budapest

Pavel

On the banks of the Danube, in Budapest, not far from the Hungarian Parliament building, 60 pairs of 1940s-style worn-out shoes pairs of shoes are lined up. There are women’s, men’s and children’s shoes, left there, close to the water, abandoned in a disorderly fashion, as if their owners had just taken them off. However, If you look closer, you see that the shoes are rusty, made of iron, and fixed in the concrete of the pier. It is the sad memorial in honor of the Hungarian Jews who, in…

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Mauthausen concentration camp and the Stairs of Death.

Pavel

The Mauthausen concentration camp, located about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was one of the largest labor camp in the German-controlled part of Europe, and between 1938 and 1945 had a central camp near the village of Mauthausen, and nearly one hundred other subcamps located throughout Austria (and southern Germany). It had the most brutal detention conditions, and was classified “Grade III”, where the most political enemies of the Reich were sent to be exterminated, often after a terrible forced labor. The SS called…

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