Buchenwald, 1945. Photo courtesy Wiki Commons.

YOM HASHOAH is observed on the 27th day of the month of Nisan, which marks the day on the Jewish Calendar when Allied troops liberated the first Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany, in 1945.

Today, Yom HaShoah falls on the same date, April 11, 65 years later.

The days leading up to and following the liberation of Buchenwald have become among the most poignant and in some ways, horrifically “iconic” moments in history, moments made up of hundreds of incidents, including:

*The initial discovery (and documentation via movies taken by Allied soldiers) of 10s of thousands of starving prisoners and stacks of human bodies (In the days leading up to the liberation, the SS had run out of material to operate the crematoriums and began stacking bodies in huge piles.)

*The discovery of lamps in officers’ quarters with lampshades made of human skin

* General George Patton (who commanded the Allied forces liberating the camps) urinating into the Rhine River in emulation of William the Conqueror

*Edward R. Murrow reporting from Buchenwald the day after the liberation and calling out the US on not adopting policies that would have saved thousands of lives

Today, since the economic crisis, funding of support groups for Holocaust survivors has dwindled. What’s been less publicized has been the economic problems facing Holocaust survivors in the US, the majority of whom live in Brooklyn.

To learn more about how you can help, please read Erika Dreyfus’s article today on Shoah survivors in need.

Community Connection

Are you or is anyone you know a descendant of Holocaust survivors? Please let us know in the comments below, and if you know of any other good orgs in need of contribution.

All photos by author.

From memorials peppering the city, to the always-present flowers on folksinger and folk hero Victor Jara’s grave, to the fact that one of the main streets is called September 11th, the date on which the golpe militar, or military coup, started in 1973.

Augusto Pinochet held power for 17 years during a period of Chilean history many Chileans would prefer to put behind them, and many choose never to talk about. As a foreigner, I often feel it’s not my place to say a word with respect to the dictatorship.

The dictatorship is everywhere, and it’s nowhere.

There are demonstrations every September 11th, and March 29th (for Day of the Young Combatant, which remembers two brothers active in the leftist resistance movement who were shot and killed by the police during a demonstration) but the rest of the year there is a whole lot of silence.

You might ask someone where they picked up such flawless French, or ask how their family in Sweden is doing, but never ask the underlying questions: Were you in exile, too? Were you one of the 30,000 people imprisoned or tortured? Is one of your family among the 3,197 people killed or disappeared?

With the inauguration of the $22 million Museo de La Memoria y Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights), this quiet is lifting, giving way to dialogue. A conversation in which the older generation comes to watch the news footage of the era, reminding themselves of time and place, and the younger generation congregates, surprised to see that in Europe, protests were held against the dictatorship. Parents take children born into democracy on a history ride through their own family tree, pointing and explaining, and answering questions the children are just now learning to ask.

The museum is a stark, glassed-in building in a giant sloped plaza, opposite the Quinta Normal Metro stop on the green line (Linea 5) in Barrio Yungay, one of Santiago Centro’s working-to-middle class neighborhoods.

The permanent exhibit is three floors of documentation, multimedia, memorabilia, news clippings, poetry, art, and stark reminders of torture. The first floor looks at human rights as a universal challenge, with a rough map of the world laid out in photos that show efforts to maintain human rights.

Below, are a series of plaques representing the truth commissions established to document what happened in each country’s dictatorship. Alongside Chile are Serbia, Bosnia, Uganda, Chad, El Salvador, East Timor, and dozens of others.

Further upstairs, the events of September 11th, 1973 are shown, aged black and white footage showing the attack on the presidential palace, the moving in of troops among civilians, the falling of curfew. Further exhibition spaces show international newspapers condemning the dictatorship, repression, and torture, and stark black panels where children’s drawings and letters are posted, asking where their parents have gone.

Up further still, under strong sunlight let in by the museum’s glass walls, the demand for truth and justice is documented, along with footage of families of the disappeared talking about the future. Mementos of the era are under a large glass display, an open time capsule with vinyl records and food packages of the day. The displays take the visitor through the demand for justice, and the plebiscite vote that returned Chile to democracy, proclaiming “Nunca Más” (Never Again).

All the while, a backdrop of black and white photos of more than a thousand of the disappeared, many taken as enlarged photocopies of their national ID cards, are framed against a pale green wall that stretches along the height of the museum, with empty frames interspersed among them.

The museum was inaugurated by President of the Republic Michelle Bachelet in January 2010. Ms. Bachelet had been detained, tortured, and ultimately lived in exile during the dictatorship. The museum calls itself an “invitation to reflect on attacks made on life and dignity from September 11, 1973 to March 10, 1990 in Chile.”

I’m hoping it’s an invitation for people to talk about what’s been unsaid, and for me to listen, and ask the questions for which I’ve wondered the answers for the five years I’ve called Chile home.

Community Connection:

Eileen Smith, a regular contributor to Matador and one of our community ambassadors, is also Matador’s destination expert on Chile. Don’t hesitate to connect with her if you have questions about Chile, and check out her blog.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, the home of the Ku Klux Klan.  Raised in a middle class household, King experienced racism throughout his childhood.  As he got older, he started hating white people, even though his parents continued to tell him that he should not.

In September 1944, King entered Morehouse College, and everything began to change.  He met white people who shared his ideas of justice, and he joined the Intercollegiate Council, a mixed race organization.

His path eventually led him to the ministry, and after receiving a doctorate, King and his wife moved back to the South, ending up in Montgomery, Alabama.

On December 1, 1955 one of King’s parishioners, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger.  A few days later, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his first speech.  The rest, as they say, is history.

In tribute to a man who changed the United States, if not the world, forever, I have compiled a collection of inspiring quotes spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must all learn to live together as brothers.  Or we will all perish together as fools.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence.

There is within human nature an amazing potential for goodness.

It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice and brotherhood.

But we simply cannot have peace in the world without mutual respect.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

People are often surprised to learn that I am an optimist. They know how often I have been jailed, how frequently the days and nights have been filled with frustration and sorrow, how bitter and dangerous are my adversaries…They fail, however, to perceive the sense of affirmation generated by the challenge of embracing struggle and surmounting obstacles.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Community Connection:

For more about Martin Luther King, Jr. and other inspiring people, read 10 Revolutionary Acts of Courage by Ordinary People.

Xieng Khouang province, located in the mountains of Northern Laos, was the site of major ground battles between the Pathet Lao and the American-backed Royal Lao Army and one of the most heavily bombed areas of the entire war.

Today Xieng Khouang is known primarily for the Plain of Jars, a collection of two thousand year old archaeological sites, but leftovers from the war are unavoidable – the landscape is dotted with craters, Hmong villagers use bomb casings as building material and unexploded ordnance (UXO) remains buried throughout forests and farmland.

The Lao government and a few Western NGOs (most notably MAG) have launched campaigns to clear jar sites and farmland of bombs, encouraging tourism and reducing the number of accidental UXO victims. Despite these admirable efforts, Xieng Khouang remains poor, barren and littered with deadly explosives.

1. In the past, many residents of Xieng Khouang were hesitant to reveal the location of large pieces of UXO, fearing that they would be destroyed and could no longer be sold as scrap metal. This lead to the implementation of the “low-order technique,” a method of removing explosive material without damaging the valuable parts of the ordnance.

2. Bomb casings make durable building material in many impoverished villages, where metal is expensive and rare.

3. In addition to building material, bomb casings are also used for flower pots.

4.An assortment of mortars, grenades, and cluster bomblets used during the war.

5.Of the 250 million bombs that the US dropped on Laos, at least 80 million did not explode and remain buried in the ground. Designed as anti-personnel weapons, the bombs are filled with ball bearings that increase the amount of shrapnel released in an explosion. Unfortunately, they look very similar to the balls Hmong children toss to each other at New Year festivities.

6.Vast expanses of fertile land in Xieng Khouang remain full of buried explosives, rendering them unusable and keeping the predominantly Hmong population poor.

7.An approximately 200ft (61m) wide crater on unused land.

8.Small craters left by cluster bomblets.

9.Many of the bomb craters have formed semi-permanent ponds.

10.By 1973, the only thing left standing in the old provincial capital of Muang Khoun was Wat Phia Wat’s Buddha statue. The rest of the town was completely leveled by American bombs and ground battles between the Royal Lao Army and Pathet Lao.

11.A bombed-out hospital in Muang Khoun remains a monument to the war.

12.Many houses and restaurants in the rebuilt Muang Khoun use disarmed bombs as decoration.

13.The two thousand year old jars scattered around Xieng Khouang are the area’s biggest draw for tourism. Their original purpose remains a mystery, but popular theories include funerary vessels, food storage, and alcohol fermentation containers.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Traveling to Laos? Check out Matador’s Laos Destination Guide first!

Photo: Luxerta

I was listening to the radio as I was driving home from work. When I parked in front of my apartment building, I couldn’t get out of the car. The host was describing Saro Wiwa, a writer and an intellectual who had devoted his life to activism when oil giant Royal Dutch Shell began impinging upon environmental and human rights in Nigeria’s Ogoniland. His vision was to engage RDS through a peaceful, non-violent movement.

That movement attracted enough support and international attention to make RDS and the Nigerian government uncomfortable. In 1995, after having been arrested with eight other activists on unfounded allegations of murder, Saro Wiwa was brought to trial and sentenced to death by hanging. As if the execution was not enough, Saro Wiwa’s body was burned with acid and dumped in an unmarked grave.

No individual or group ever took responsibility for the torture and execution of Saro Wiwa and the other activists, as well as the exile of Wiwa family members that occurred after the murder.

Royal Dutch Shell, of course, carried on with business as usual.

The story of Saro Wiwa’s life and death was compelling, and I made a note to stop by the library the following day so I could read some of his work and learn more about him.

And then, September 11 happened.
*
I thought about that broadcast this weekend, when I attended PEN World Voices Festival’s panel discussion between Ken Saro Wiwa’s son, the journalist and government adviser Ken Wiwa, and the American novelist Richard North Patterson, whose most recent novel is based loosely on Saro Wiwa’s life and death. The two men convened, along with moderator Okey Ndibe, a Nigerian novelist, to talk about Saro Wiwa’s legacy.

Ndibe started the conversation by sharing his own recollections of Saro Wiwa. He was “ebullient” Ndibe said of Saro Wiwa, and he “always carried a book” and his signature smoking pipe. Ndibe recalled a man full of life and passion, even in the midst of struggle.

Photo of Ken Wiwa by Francisco Collazo

Wiwa acknowledged Ndibe’s vision of Saro Wiwa, but added that he believed his father also carried a weight of sadness, which came from the sense that he hadn’t achieved enough in the struggle, or that the efforts of the movement were not making progress quickly enough.

Over the course of the conversation, the three men agreed that the ambitious agenda of social, environmental, and economic justice advocated by Saro Wiwa was, if seemingly solitary for Saro Wiwa himself, also profoundly visionary. Today, climate change, desertification, land rights, and the effects of corporatocracies on communities might well be considered the core issues of our time. Saro Wiwa was largely responsible for putting them on the world’s radar screen.

In his final statement before the military tribunal, Saro Wiwa said:

I have no doubt at all about the ultimate success of my cause, no matter the trials and tribulations which I and those who believe with me may encounter on our journey.

The legacy Saro Wiwa left for us all, agreed Ndibe, Wiwa, and Patterson, was to always keep trying, to stay true to one’s ideals and goals even when no progress or support seems imminent, to stay engaged in the struggle.

It’s a message that’s a meaningful reminder for anyone engaged in social justice work, and one that had particular resonance on the day of the panel discussion. After more than 12 years, the Center for Constitutional Rights recently announced that Wiwa v. Shell will open in a federal court in Manhattan on May 26, 2009. After jury selection, the trial is expected to take 4 to 6 weeks.

To stay current with developments in the case, visit the CCR’s Wiwa v. Shell website.

And to learn more about the background of the case, take a few minutes to watch this video:

Clearly moaning in pain and surrounded by tearful family members, including a 10 year old grandson, it was hard to imagine why the agents would show up in force to remove John Demjanjuk from his home.

But the photos and video footage alone could not explain the backstory about Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian immigrant to the US who is accused of being a Nazi guard and accessory to the deaths of more than 29,000 people during the Holocaust.

Demjanjuk’s story is a complicated one. Tried and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an Israeli court in 1988, Demjanjuk’s conviction was subsequently overturned by Israeli Supreme Court. Then, a US judge revoked his American citizenship in 2002 after learning that Demjanjuk had concealed evidence about his service in the Nazi camps. Three years later, an immigration judge ruled he could be deported to the Ukraine, Poland, or Germany, where a warrant has been issued for his arrest. Yet four years later, Demjanjuk was still living at his home in Ohio.

Until yesterday, when ICE agents seized him and prepared him for deportation. But then, a surprise twist– three judges with the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on the deportation order just six hours later.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Demjanjuk, whose family claims, somewhat ironically, that deportation would be “torturous” for a man in his condition.

Though the image of Demjanjuk being wheeled out of his home is one that evokes some degree of pity, one has to ask whether age should ever impose a statute of limitations on our sins.

The question is one gaining increasing relevance, and not just because of Demjanjuk.

Photo: Paul Mannix

In a March episode of the news broadcast, “World Focus,” it was reported that Cambodia had initiated a trial of Kaing Guek Eav, the man who ran the notoriously brutal Tuol Sleng Prison during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Kaing Guek Eav, now in his late 60s, is a self-proclaimed born-again Christian who seems harmless with his watery eyes, wrinkled face, and slightly stooped posture. Yet he is charged with aiding and abetting the deaths of more than 15,000 Cambodians during the 1970s. Family members of victims have shown up by the hundreds to witness the trial, and have described the process as cathartic because justice is finally being served.

What do you think? Legal considerations and mandates aside, is there a moral or ethical statute of limitations on our sins? Share your opinions below.

On display in Museo de la Memoria (Museum of Memory) between March 23 and May 30, I made it to the opening on the eve of Día Nacional de la Memoria por la Verdad y la Justicia (National Day of Memory for Truth and Justice), a holiday dedicated to the remembrance of the dictatorship and the atrocities and deaths attributable to it.

Family photos enlarged to the size of picture windows present a “before.” Before as in before the Argentinean dictatorship between the years of 1976 and 1983 that snuffed out the lives of as many as 30,000 people.

Above: Maria Irma Ferriera – missing since age 22, murdered January 7, 1977, in a family photograph from 1970.

To the right of each of these moments caught on film among family and friends are their modern counterparts. People who have aged in the interim, the ones who remain, recreate each scene under the careful direction of photographer Gustavo Germano.

Husbands, wives, parents, and children who once were there leave haunting spaces in the images. The gravity of the loss is apparent in the eyes of those in the enormous, full color prints. Many of the subjects gaze directly into the camera with sobering expressions.

The disappeared were from all walks of life. Children were taken from mothers who were suspected of having subversive views – the mothers killed and the children given to the military elite.

The following are some photographs I took of the exhibition along with translations from the program. The missing are named with their age at the time of their disappearance or murder.

María del Carmen Fettolini (age 29)
María Eugenia Amestoy (age 5)
Fernanado Amestoy (age 3)

(in this photo, you can see Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo viewing the work)

María del Carmen was born in 1947 in Nogoyá. Childhood sweetheart and wife of Omar Dario Amestoy, she was a kindergarten teacher in a Catholic school in Nogoyá.

At the age of 29, María del Carmen was brutally assassinated by Army forces and Federal Police along with her husband, Omar Dario Amestoy, and their small children, María Eugenia and Fernando. At six in the morning, tanks and trucks surrounded their house at 668 Justo Street while they slept.

Cars, submachine guns, shouts, grenades, tear gas. María del Carmen, Omar, and their friend Ana María Granada had no means of defending themselves. They tried to hide the children. The adults died riddled with bullets. The children, María Eugenia and Fernando, were asphyxiated by gas. Five month old Manuel, son of Ana María Granada, hidden in a blanket inside a wardrobe, was the only survivor. He recovered his identity in 1995.

In this 1974 photograph, María del Carmen on the right smiles next to her mother in law, Aurora Yturbe, her cousin Martín and her two children, María Eugenia and Fernando. Sunday lunch with the in-laws.

As of March 2009, the families continue to seek justice.

Orlando René Méndez (age 29)
Leticia Margarita Oliva (age 30)

Orlando René was born in San Salvador (Entre Rios) November 10, 1946. Leticia Margarita Oliva was born in Plaza Huincul (Neuquén) August 26, 1948. They were married in April 1970. Their only child, Laura, was born five years later.

Orlando “Toto” worked in an air conditioner factory and was a guerrilla soldier. On October 21, 1976, he was arrested during a meeting with this organization. His 11-month old daughter was with him. They were both transferred to the Navy Mechanics School. Orlando arrived dead.

María Álvarez, also detained there, looked after the baby for several hours. By night, the child was abandoned at an orphanage where, after several days of searching, her mother was found and they were reunited.

After the arrest and murder of her husband, Leticia abandoned activism and moved to another city. December 27, 1978, two years after Orlando’s arrest, an armed commando group invaded her home.

Three year old Laura was in the house with her babysitter. The soldiers waited six hours for Leticia to return from the clinic where she worked. As soon as she entered, they blindfolded her, beat her, and took her away. This is the last image Laura would ever have of her mother, who she would never see again.

In the photograph, Orlando and Leticia with Laura in the house of her grandparents days before the state strike of March 24, 1976.

As of March 29, 2009 Orlando and Leticia are still missing.

Eduardo Raúl Germano (age 18)

Eduardo Raúl was born February 20, 1958 in Villaguay. The oldest of four brothers, at 16 he was elected president of La Salle Student Center and started an activist group.

In July, 1976, he was detained nine days in the hidden detention center in Paraná City Army Squadron Communication Center (CCD). Once freed, he moved to Rosario where he lived in hiding. On December 17, 1976, he was arrested once again, this time by the Argentinean Army and Santa Fe Province Police.

For days he was tortured in the CCD, known as “El Pozo,” or the hole. Investigations following the dictatorship and verified recently by the Museum of the Memory in Rosario reveal that Germano was murdered December 23, 1976.

Rosario Chief of Police, Augustín Feced, organized a simulated terrorist attack in the Fisherton neighborhood to blow up the tortured bodies of Eduardo and his girlfriend. Eduardo “el Mencho” or “the Mensch,” was buried January 4, 1977 in an unmarked grave at La Piedad Cemetery, which was later turned into a mass reliquary.

In the photograph: 1969. The family goes on vacation to Uruguay. The Argentinean police demand an identity photo of the children before permitting them to cross the border. The photo was taken in a studio in a nearby town.

As of March 2009, Eduardo is still missing.

The artist is the subject on the left of each photo here.

Visit Germano’s website to see more photos. Even if you can’t speak or understand Spanish, these photos need no translation.