Fromelles – The Missing

A Magnet Fundraiser seeking your support.

Magnet is hosting a very special event in Docklands, Melbourne, with a presentation by Lambis Englezos AM. His unending commitment and remarkable work revealed, in 2008, the largest non-genocide mass burial in Western Europe of World War I. This was Fromelles, 1916, where many hundreds of Australian soldiers were buried in mass graves by the Germans following the disastrous Battle of Fromelles.

These were people, young people, who committed their lives to a cause. And yet, we never knew where they lay. We ask how was this possible? How did we not know? This epic effort to give honour to these young Australians needed to search into archives and stories, and reached across countries, across generations, such was the persistence of Lambis Englezos AM.

Now, 104 years after the Australian diggers were buried in that unmarked burial plot, this year Lambis and Major General (Ret.) Mike O'Brien will lead a group back to pay respects to those Australians. They now lie in Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery at Fromelles, the last war cemetery of WW1, dedicated in 2010.

This tour commemorates the 10th anniversary of that dedication. Magnet's Michael Silver will capture the moments of that return in his inimitable way of creating visual stories through single images, images that will speak to each of us with emotion and depth of heart.

This Magnet Galleries event will raise much needed funds to bring Michael to Fromelles.