In Memory of the Tiny

There was not much blood. Small bodies have little blood anyway, but small, starved bodies have less. Or perhaps it just clots quicker.

The tiny lifeless corpse hung on the barbed wire and fried in the sun, with the tiny pool of blood under it congealing like soup. Human soup. And it smelt. And that was perhaps the worst part of it. Because the body, almost inhuman in its tortured form, could be glossed over by the heart but the smell invaded the heart and tore it into a thousand pieces. The smell of death. Young death.

In general, the children were taken and destroyed first, but somehow this one had survived. Perhaps it had been hidden well. Perhaps some incredulous pity had turned the eye of the butchers. It was hard to tell. But it had escaped the furnaces, with its parent. Parent, because gender had died along with compassion when they had entered the camp. The dead have no gender.

But then the mother was taken and the child had tried to follow, tangling itself on the barbed wire. The wire cut and through blood and tears the child had fought, not to free itself, but simply to be with its mother.

And the guards had laughed. Then shot it.

And then they ate their lunch.

And the tiny body hung. And stank. And all those who waited for their own death knew that the end of the world was come. And they named it Auschwitz.

True stories are often more shocking than the made up ones.

2009 marks the 50th anniversary of China's horrific invasion of Tibet. Apart from 50 years of genocide, torture, labour camps, the detention of children and environmental destruction on a scale that would turn a hardened logger into a greeny, it also marks 50 years of the world's disinterest - Tibet is a long way away and someone else's problem.

I wrote the following item ten years ago now on the 40th anniversary of killing. I am so sad that the situation in Tibet is definitely unimproved - if anything it has gotten much worse. This year, the 50th anniversary, it would be well to make one of our New Years resolutions to do just a little to help address this 50 year oversight. Many eyes and cameras will be on Tibet this year - it's your big chance to do something for the world.

Snap Snap, Feign a grin,
The Peoples Camera is watching you,
You'd better hide the truth within,
Animals of the Peoples Zoo.

The World must see a happy face,
And forget the million that have died,
Forget destruction of a race,
Forget about their genocide.

Peaceful cries for humanity,
With ruthless violence are suppressed,
With torture, death and brutality,
But call it just Arrest.

A minority in their homeland,
Monks beaten, nuns violated,
Religion, culture, history banned,
A people being eradicated.

Under curfew the people wait,
Ever victims of repression,
That's the way that Tibetans celebrate
Their 50 years of oppression.

Snap Snap, Feign a grin,
The Peoples Camera is watching you,
You'd better hide the truth within,
Animals of the Peoples Zoo.

Go find out more