About Us
The World Remembers: 1914–1918/Le Monde Se Souvient : 1914–1918 is a registered charitable organization under Canada’s Income Tax Act. Its mandate is to create this international First World War commemoration project.
It has taken more than a decade to establish agreements with countries, national archives, historical institutions, and private historical organizations to facilitate the assembling of the names and photos that you will see here. The name-related data and photographs remain the property of the governments or organizations that contributed them. The World Remembers has only the rights to include the names in our search functions and names displayed, and to include the photos in our gallery.
Currently participating countries include Canada, France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Slovenia, South Africa, Czech Republic, Australia, Türkiye, Croatia, Austria, Ukraine, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, New Zealand, Portugal, Malta, Japan, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Poland. We have also included the names of individuals from the British Indian Army and the Chinese Labour Corps who lost their lives. To give you an idea of the scope of the numbers involved, this commemoration features 2,674 Chinese names, 533,547 Italian, 68,569 Canadian, 1,413,935 French, 109,902 American, 55,965 Belgian, 830,813 British, 835,167 German, 74,193 from the British Indian Army, and so on, for a total of more than five million. Names are added or corrected each year, based on revised data received from partner organizations or governments.
In our displays, the country for each name is identified by that country’s internet code. Names from each country appear at equal intervals, no matter the differences in numbers of deaths among the countries. Names do not appear in alphabetical order, since there was no alphabetical ordering to their deaths. We acknowledge the differences of history while honouring the equality of the dead.
OUR DISPLAYS
A selection of the displays that we have produced or facilitated.
On the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 2008, over the course of seven nights, 68,569 Canadian names were projected:
- on the National War Memorial in Ottawa, in partnership with Veterans Affairs Canada
- in Ieper, Belgium, in partnership with the In Flanders Fields Museum
- on Canada House in Trafalgar Square UK, with the assistance of the Canadian High Commission in London
- on Toronto City Hall, with the permission of the City of Toronto
The names were also displayed in participating churches, universities and local organizations in many parts of Canada.
During the First World War Centenary years from 2014 to 2018, our displays with all names, both Canadian and international appeared in:
- more than 150 schools across Canada
- participating universities, libraries, museums and community organizations in Canada
- participating universities, historical societies, museums and State Archives in the US and the UK
- Canadian embassies and High Commissions in Geneva, Rome, Latvia, Berlin, London, Brussels, Washington, D.C., and Prague;
- the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden, Germany;
- the National World War I Museum and Memorial in the United States; and
- the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper, Belgium.
INTERACTIVE KIOSK
In 2019 following the centenary years, we created an interactive kiosk for installation in museums and other locations. The kiosk’s touch screen allows visitors to read short histories of each participating country, explore the Photo Gallery and use the Search the Names feature to source the information we have received about any name in our memorial. A 15-minute segment of the main names-display can then be seen that includes the name that was searched for.
The World Remembers has kiosks installed in:
- the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa;
- the National World War I Museum and Memorial in the United States; and
- the Visitor Education Centre at Canada’s Vimy Monument in France.
We continue to try to bring countries not yet participating into the commemoration and continue the enduring search for names we are still missing.
On Saturday evening, November 8th, on a foggy, Halifax night we stood beside St. Paul’s Cathedral in the Grand Parade and watched as these names, nine thousand per day, were illuminated . . . We got there early. As we stood in the mist and watched . . . I thought of all the mothers and fathers who had painstakingly chosen those names for their beloved children only to see them fall in battle. I thought of what impact those same people could have had on our country had they lived. I thought of the huge loss it must have been to Canada’s population back in those years. And then, I stopped thinking and got caught up in the countdown for the name we were awaiting. When STUART WYNN flashed up in large letters at 10:16pm, my mother gasped and I heard my brother say, “There he is!” There we stood speechless, seven of us who had never known Stuart Wynn in life, ninety-one years after his death . . . looking at his name in lights and feeling him beside us. When his name disappeared I felt a tug of loss. As we stood and chatted, we continued to watch the other names and then realized we were all having a hard time leaving, that someone should be there to watch all the names, it seemed to mean that much.