Matariki: Pōhutukawa and preserving the legacy of the 28th Māori Battalion

As Matariki rises, we are invited to pause and remember those who have gone before us.

Among the nine stars of the Matariki cluster is Pōhutukawa - the star connected to those who have passed on. It is a time to reflect on loved ones, honour their memories and carry their stories into the future.

For Juliana Keefe, remembering those who came before has become a lifelong commitment.

She has dedicated herself to preserving the stories of the 28th Māori Battalion for almost three decades, carefully compiling photographs, military records, handwritten notes, cemetery information and personal histories collected from across Aotearoa and overseas.

The work began with her father, Private John Keefe.

"Dad hardly spoke about his war years until Mum passed away," she told RNZ.

"I looked after him for three years and that's when he started telling me all his stories about all his friends."

"Some of them I felt like I knew them well."

Her father, who enlisted in 1941, served alongside three of his brothers in the 28th Māori Battalion during the Second World War. Three of his brothers, Wi Keefe, Peter Keefe, and George Tau Ta (Andy) Keefe, also served.

While growing up, Keefe knew little about what they had experienced overseas. Instead, she remembers the men who came home.

"He was a very quiet and very hardworking man," she said of her father.

"We hardly had anything, well I should say we didn't have much, but we had plenty. We had the sea where we got our kaimoana and we had gardens where we had all our vegetables and fruit.

"At the end of the day we had a wonderful, wonderful life."

"I'm thankful for both my parents, they were the kindest people you could wish for parents. Even today people say, we loved your mother, we loved your father, they were both kind people."

She still remembers Anzac Days with her father, the veterans gathering together, the songs they sang and the laughter they shared.

"I remember the singing," she said.

"And then the fights," she laughed.

Those memories, alongside thousands of photographs, records and stories, have become part of an archive she hopes will one day be carried on by her own whānau.

The stories of her father unlocked a new understanding of his wartime experiences, and so she began documenting his journey and the lives of hundreds of others who served alongside him.

Over the past 27 years, that work has grown into shelves of meticulously organised albums.

Photographs from battlefields and cemeteries sit beside battalion rolls, family histories, memorial records and newspaper clippings. Every name represents someone she has tried to learn more about.

"If I see a memorial, I'll take a photo," she said.

"Then I come home and I put who they are. Because I don't like looking at photos like this and I don't know anything about them....So I want to know who they are."

Her research has taken her across the world, retracing the footsteps of the Māori Battalion while gathering photographs of headstones, memorials and battle sites. It has also taken her into schools, where she has shared those stories with tamariki, encouraging younger generations to understand the sacrifices made by those who served.

Keefe said she hopes younger generations will continue learning those histories and that the stories she has spent decades preserving continue long after she is gone.

"I hope that they learn from this and keep it alive for generations and generations to come," she said.

"It is important...They went to save us, to save other people with their lives," she said.

"It's important that we don't forget them."

Keefe said many soldiers returned home carrying invisible scars, while their whānau also lived with the impacts of war.

"A lot of these men... some were lucky and others weren't," she said.

"Coming back home, there was nothing for them, no help."

As Matariki reminds us to honour those who have passed, Keefe believes remembrance is carrying those histories into the future.

"It needs to be for everybody to remember these men," she said.

"Because they fought hard for us."