Missing at the Front - unearthing names

Info: In Flanders Fields Museum

Countless soldiers lost their lives on the battlefields of the First World War. Many found eternal rest in a military cemetery. But tens of thousands of missing soldiers have remained buried under the ground. Thanks to archaeological and historical research, some of them are now recovering their identity.

"Missing at the Front" looks back on more than twenty years of research. Maps and aerial photographs give an overview of the locations where human remains were found. Archaeological photographs and a scale model show the condition in which bodies are uncovered a century after the war. A timeline, unique historical images, and military maps and drawings take you back to the deadly battlefield.

The exhibition focuses on the human suffering of war, with revealing figures and graphs, Disparubut also with personal objects and archive documents. You read letters from parents desperately in search for their missing sons. You stand face to face with the excavated possessions that soldiers carried with them at the fatal moment. Often it is these personal objects that can lead to their identification.