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Category Archives: War
Cambodia. “Portrait Of Pain”
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Cambodia
Through Harold’s Lens:
What does this little boy know?
Pain?
Hunger?
Sadness?
Terror?
Safety?
Loneliness?
Misery?
Ridicule?
Rejection?
Death?
Failure?
The unknown?
What does this little boy miss?
Mommy?
Daddy?
Brother?
Sister?
Friend?
Food?
Love?
Hugs?
Happiness?
Holding hands?
Silliness?
Goofiness?
Laughter?
Little boy
Stumbling
War-torn concrete jungles
Kicking stones
Kicking dust
Flicking bugs.
Cry from his deep?
One only
Speaks Cambodian
One only
Speaks English.
I’ll never know.
“Horrific”
Cambodia
Through Harold’s Lens:
1975-79
WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT!
Please start the music first, as you are enjoying the images and words.
You will receive the full sensual experience of this story.
Pol Pot Regime
Khmer Rouge
Terror
Killing fields
3,000,000 people slaughtered!
Society
Confiscated: private property
Burned: homes to the ground
Banned: family relationships
Separated: children from parents
Relocated: different parts of Cambodia
Relocated: collective farms, forced labor
Banned: personal utensils
Eliminated: privacy, sexual relations
Death: family members communicating
Banned: religion, Buddhist temples destroyed
Murdered: 60,000 monks
Abolished: freedom to travel
Abolished: postal service, telephone service
Closed: hospitals, factories
Closed: schools, books burned
Closed: banks, money burned
Destroyed: bank records, claims to funds
Isolated: Cambodia from foreign countries.
Family
Grandmother, Grandfather
Mother, Father
Daughter, Son
Infant.
Long marches: days through countryside
Died: children, elderly, sick
Work: 12 hours non-stop, no rest, no food,
no medicine, no medical services
Death: disease, illness
Death: exhaustion, overwork
Death: starvation
Murdered: offenders
Murdered: intellectuals, city-dwellers
Murdered: teachers, minorities
Murdered: merchants, suspected traitors
Murdered: practicing religion
Raped: females
Torture: children taught methods with animals
Torture: children carried out torture, executions.
Torture
Mass graves: 20,000, 1,386,734 victims
Torture centre: 16,000 sent to death
Secret prison: S-21.14,000 prisoners, 12 survived
Small cells: shackled to walls & concrete floor
Large cells: collectively shackled to long iron bars
Food: human feces
Water: human urine
Torture: sliced with knives
Torture: electric shocks, searing hot metal
Torture: suffocation in plastic bags
Torture: fingernails pulled out, alcohol poured on wounds
Torture: alive, bled to death
Torture: alive, sliced open, organs removed, no anesthetic
Torture: alive, skinned
Torture: heads held under water
Execution: pickaxes, spades, sharpened bamboo sticks, machetes
Execution: heads of children, infants bashed against trees.
30 years later
Widows: tens of thousands
Orphans: tens of thousands
Living: severe traumatization
Pol Pot Regime
Khmer Rouge
Terror
Killing fields
3,000,000 people slaughtered!
May our world never forget this horrific event.
Documentation Center of Cambodia
“My Life In A Hole”
Cambodia
Through Harold’s Lens:
Mom buried me alive!
“In 1976 I was 5”, Savon said.
“Daddy dead”
“Brother dead”
“Mommy horrified”
“Me terrified”.
Khmer Rouge
Killing fields
3,000,000 slaughtered!
Protection from murder.
4:30am.
Home
Small village
Open field.
Dark deep hole.
Dirt hole
Five feet deep
Three feet square.
Roof
Thatched bamboo
Grass cover
Heavy.
My dark hole
Every morning.
Mom left me
Alone
In a hole
12 hours
Pure fright
Pure terror.
Mom in rice field
Picking.
Not fresh green stems
Not prime first cut.
One kernel
One kernel
One kernel.
One white kernel
One white kernel in the dirt.
Rats snapping
Cobras slithering
Mom’s tiny toes
Under water.
One meal that day
One meal day after day
After day
After day.
Mom buried me alive!
Khmer Rouge
Killing fields
3,000,000 slaughtered!
“Life Destroyed”
Poland
Through Harold’s Lens:
Please start the music first, as you are enjoying the images and words.
You will receive the full sensual experience of this story.
Inside a chamber of horrors
The little girl shrieked
“Mommmmmmmmmmmmy?”
“Daddddddddddddy?”
Where are you?
Wave after wave
Luftwaffe bombers
Rains of bombs
Blasts!!! Blasts!!! Blasts!!!
Tons of concrete crashed on tons of concrete
Explosions, fires
Historic buildings destroyed.
Screams!
“Grandpa?”
“Grandma?”
“Help me! I’m all alone”
Fear had dug talons deep.
Tanks crushed fresh bodies
Men, women children
Deboning corpses
Bits of bone everywhere.
Thirty degrees
Hair frozen
Covered in blood
Severe pain
Shredded pink dress
Horrific.
The day the world went to war
Hitler, Nazi claw
Storm troopers, SS, Secret police
Terror, tears executions
Concentration camps
The planet was never the same.
Cookies, Christmas
Hugs love, friends
Mommies, Daddies, little children
All gone.
Gdansk
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland
World War II begins
Five years
Five million humans dead.
A woman’s memory
Could never be a little girl again
Life ripped from her soul
Macabre memories.
“Mommmmmmmmmmmmy?”
“400 Years”
Greece
Through Harold’s Lens:
Tradition
Pageantry
Ceremony
Proven valour.
The Evezones
Elite light infantry unit
Greek Army trained
Honor Guard.
Famous around the world
Men, hefty beefy
6’3”
Solid muscle.
Slow motion
Synchronized movements
Hourly
Changing of the Guard.
Parliament Building
Syntagma Square
Tomb of the unknown soldier.
Unique uniform
Recall Greek history.
Kilt
98 feet of cotton cloth
400 pleats
400 years of Ottoman occupation.
Clogs
Red leather, black pompons
Soles, 120 nails
Weight, 7 pounds.
Elite Presidential Guard
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