By TONY WALL
A Jewish man whose family was rescued from Nazi Germany by a New Zealand soldier is the driving force behind the resurrection of an Anzac monument discovered trashed and forgotten a year ago.
The Memorial Beacon, believed to be the first Anzac monument erected in New Zealand (it went up in 1915), was found by the Herald in pieces in a dingy shed on the Auckland waterfront.
The memorial to waterside workers who gave their lives in the First World War had commanded pride of place near the Ferry Building for 50 years.
But in 1969, during the development of the Downtown shopping centre, the monument was taken down, put into storage and forgotten.
A tip led the Herald to begin searching for it, and it was discovered lying amid junk and scrap metal in a shed behind a secure customs area.
Bronze wreaths and a railing holding an orb in place were missing, but the granite base and obelisk were intact, together with three rolls of honour.
The monument was restored after an anonymous benefactor came forward to pay for the work.
It has been re-erected outside the National Maritime Museum on the corner of Quay and Hobson Sts and will be officially unveiled after Anzac Day.
The Herald has agreed to protect the identity of the elderly man who paid for the restoration.
He said he was outraged when he read of the monument's fate, and was determined to see it returned to its full glory.
The man said his mother had met a New Zealand soldier in 1918 while the New Zealand Division was occupying Cologne. He wrote his name in her autograph book.
Seventeen years later, as Nazi persecution of German Jews intensified, his desperate mother wrote to the soldier in Auckland.
The soldier arranged visas for the family to come to New Zealand.
He was in the Home Guard during the Second World War and has since died.
The benefactor said he owed not just the soldier but the city of Auckland a debt of gratitude.
"We certainly came to the right place - it's a beautiful city."
He said he was old-fashioned and believed historical objects such as the Anzac monument should be preserved.
Anzac beacon's restoration repays soldier's good deed
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