Australian Ex - Prisoners of War Memorial The Australian Ex - Prisoners of War Memorial was dedicated on Friday , 6 February 2004 . It is located on the southern approaches to the Ballarat Botanical Gardens , on Wendouree Parade and adjacent to Lake Wendouree . Purpose . Now recognised nationally as the official National Prisoner of War Memorial , the memorial honours more than 35 , 000 Australians who were held prisoner during the Boer War , World War I , World War II and the Korean War . It is a place of national honour , remembrance and healing for all Australians . The memorial takes visitors on a journey to a different time and place , where heroism , sacrifice and mateship were the defining characteristics of the prisoners of war . Background . Between the 1950s and 1990s surviving prisoners of war from the Ballarat region met regularly and various plans for the establishment of a focal point for commemoration were periodically discussed . Throughout that time the Australian Federal Government had given periodic undertakings that a permanent monument would be eventually built in Canberra ( the national capital ) . By the early 1980s , the Ballarat City Council granted a parcel of land adjacent to the city gardens to allow local veterans a place to establish a permanent focal point for the Ballarat POWs . By the mid - 1990s the Australian Federal Government still had no plan for a permanent monument to be established in Canberra , thus the surviving POWs in Ballarat were prompted to action and planned for the building of a permanent memorial in their city to be largely privately funded and established with minimum government assistance . With significant support from the Ballarat branch of the Returned and Services League ( RSL ) of Australia , a local sculptor , Peter Blizzard , was commissioned to design a concept for the memorial . The vision provided by the sculptor was for a monument far greater in scale and scope than that originally envisaged by the veterans . However , support for a significantly larger monument that would commemorate all Australian POWs was immediate . Funding was provided through lotteries , private donations , benevolent organisations ( most notably Tattersall ' s ) , the City of Ballarat , local businesses , and finally the Federal and Victorian State Governments . Work commenced on the construction of the memorial in early 2003 with much of the labour and materials donated or provided at cost . The Ballarat RSL , assisted by volunteers , worked for over 10 years to compile names to form the first national database of Australian prisoners of war . Prior to 2004 , the Australian Federal Government and the Australian Defence Force held no complete central list , database , or consolidated record of its prisoners of war . Information was recorded only on individual personnel records held in Defence archives at the Central Army Records Office ( CARO ) in Melbourne . It is believed that there may be some names still missing , and the memorial has a postscript section allocated to enable further additions . Design . Approximately long , the memorial features a long pathway of light - grey basalt pavers cut to resemble railway sleepers , reminiscent of those used on the Thai – Burma Railway . To the southern side are two canted black polished granite walls with the names of all known Australian prisoners of war . They are listed alphabetically by war and no rank is acknowledged . The two walls are separated in the middle by a square pool of water that features six large basalt obelisks . These feature the names of the countries where Australian POWs were held . The obelisks centralised in the pool of water symbolise the Australian POWs being cut off and isolated from their homeland by the ocean . The sixth obelisk is deliberately toppled on its side and broken , symbolising " The Fallen " . To the northern flank of the memorial is a larger basalt obelisk that serves as the focal point and cenotaph of the memorial which is flanked by the flags of the Royal Australian Navy , the Royal Australian Air Force , the Australian Merchant Navy and the Australian National Flag , representing the Australian Army . At the western end of the memorial another stone wall is situated with cascading water and the words " LEST WE FORGET " ; this marks the completion of the journey . The memorial is surrounded by plantings of native and jungle grasses as well as conifer and deciduous trees .