Memorial Gallery
WORLD WAR I MONUMENT 1917-1918

  
    WORLD WAR I MONUMENT — 1917-1918
OMRI AMRANY - SCULPTOR

For Freedom's sake he is no longer free …
to banish war he must a warrior be …”
Joyce Kilmer, American soldier
'The Peacemaker'- last poem
before falling in France, 1918
WORLD WAR I…The Great War…was the giant
prelude to a warlike century unprecedented in
the history of humanity. It called more man-
power and resulted in more casualties than
ever before imagined. It was a colossal conflict
that didn't settle things at all, and only prepared
for more to come.
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                              Enlarge		 The Monument…set against the landscape of a century ago...presents an installation of contradictions. It is an artistic movement of images and materials…granite, stone, military artifact, rubble, rose, dogwood and onion bulb. Symbol of a passing European Age, the arch invites us to peer into the gargantuan human experience of World War I.

Laser-etched photographs are presented under the pensive eyes of President Woodrow Wilson. Tranquil 'family America' is interrupted as a 'young man goes to war' and 'young men come back' wounded. The montage presents grueling scenes of 'trench warfare' and the aerial 'dogfight'. A hero's parade welcomes Doughboys home. 

The World War I Monument shows the pain of war with new weaponry …machine gun, flame thrower and gas mask. A dead cavalry horse, a helmet and left-over cannon bear numbing witness to the world-wide tragedy. The massive concrete beams…symbolizing destruction… point unremittingly to World War II.

Hopes for defeating War itself were shattered with America's rejection of the Peace of Paris and Wilson's League of Nations.
  SOURCES:
Interview with Omri Amrany
The American History of World War I
Brig. Gen SlA Marshall USAR (Ret)
Simon & Schuster, Inc. N.Y. 1964		  
 
     
 

 

  
 

All monument descriptions in the Memorial Gallery are written by Kathleen Van Ella.

  
 

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