Sydney Schanberg obituary 1934-1016

Sadly, I'm just learning about the work of Sydney Schanberg through his obituary.  I regret never having the opportunity to meet him, because I certainly would have appreciated a conversation about Cambodia.

As the evil dictator Pol Pot's Maoist guerrillas closed in on Phnom Penh in the spring of 1975, Sydney Schanberg's editors at The New York Times instructed him to leave the Cambodian capital. The veteran war journalist ignored the order and together with his Cambodian interpreter Dith Pran, he continued reporting.  

Within days of the Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seizing the capital city, Dith would be expelled to the contryside, along with millions of other educated and urban Cambodians- the start of Pol Pot's genocidal attempt to creat an agrarian utopia. 

Schanberg won a Pulitzer for his reports on the Khmer Rouge and Dith's remarkable survival story, which inspired the 1984 film, "The Killing Fields".  Dith's mission, "was to tell the world what suffering his people were going through," he wrote. "It became my mission too."

Killing Fields journalist Sydney Schanberg dies at 82- BBCNews

US journalist Sydney Schanberg, whose reporting inspired the Oscar-winning Hollywood film, The Killing Fields,  died at the age of 82, the New York Times reports.

Schanberg worked for the Times and won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

His colleague, Dith Pran, was unable to leave and his four-year ordeal inspired Schanberg's work.

Sydney Schanberg 1934-2916 died in Poughkeepsie NY

Schanberg died in Poughkeepsie after a heart attack earlier in the week.

His death was confirmed by Charles Kaiser, a friend and former Times reporter, the paper said.

In 1980, Schanberg described his Cambodian colleague's ordeal of torture and starvation at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in a magazine article, and later a book called The Death and Life of Dith Pran.

Oscar awards

Pictures of some of the victims of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror

In 1975, Schanberg and Dith Pran ignored directives from Times editors to evacuate and stayed in Cambodia as almost all Western diplomats and journalists fled.

Born in Clinton, Massachusettes, Schanberg joined the Times as a copy boy in 1959, and "rose quickly  through the organization," said The Daily Telegraph (U.K.) He reported on the civil war in East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1971, and met Dith a year later while covering the US bombing of North Vietnamese sanctuaries inside Camobida.  Four years after the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh, "there was no news of Dith," said The New York Times.  Racked with guild, Schangergtook time off to write about his experiences and to help Dith's wife and children to settle in the US. 

Then, in 1979, word arrived that Dith had escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand. He had endured unimaginable hardship, surviving beatings, back breaking labor, and a diet of insects, rodants and as litle as a tablespoon of rice a day.  

Schanberg immediately flew to Thailand and arranged for his friend to move to the US. Dith died in 2008.

The Khmer Rouge was the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, during which time, it was responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century. The genocide claimed the lives of more than a million people - some estimates say up to 2.5 million.

Under the Maoist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge tried to take Cambodia back to the Middle Ages, forcing millions of people from the cities to work on communal farms in the countryside.

But the attempt at social engineering had a terrible cost, and whole families died from execution, starvation, disease and overwork.

Schanberg began writing a column about New York City for the Times, in 1981, said The Washington Post. But, the "abrasive, headstrong manner" that had served him well overseas led to clashes with his bosses, and his column was canceled in 1985. Schanberg went on to write for other outlets and became a mentor to young journalists, but he never turly got over the horrors of Cambodia. "You tell yourself things in order to function, but you're going to break down," he said.  

"Eventually, you need to find room where you can sit alone and cry."

Open Letter to Maine Governor Paul LePage

"Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.’” 2 Corinthians 3:17  (In other words: Second Corinthians)

Donald Trump made a Biblical fool of himself when he couldn't state "2 Corinthians" correctly. Worse than being unable to state scriptural text, was the inability to understand the meaning of the passage.  

Unfortunately, America's right wing Republican party might be adept at reciting scriptural text and references, but they ignore the meaning of the words they often memorize. This is particularly true when faced with the immigration issue.

Recently, Maine's Governor Paul LePage made immigrants and asylum seekers the victims of his horrible racist rhetoric. There's absolutely no reason, whatsoever, for Governor LePage to stigmatize immigrants and asylum seekers. LePage stereotyped them with terrible lables, called them names and accused them, without cause, of carrying "germs" into Maine. What's worse, Governor LePage ignores the reality of his own family. In fact, he grew up in Lewiston, Maine, in a family directly related to French-Canadian immigrants! When Governor LePage ran for office, he was complimented for being a Franco-American.  Now, unfortunately, he has become an embarrassment to his heritage.  

Now, the Holocaust and Human Rights Center on the campus of the University of Maine Augusta (UMA), has published an open letter to challenge the unjust ethnic criticisms of Maine's immigrants and asylum seekers. Shame on Governor Paul LePage!

Here is the text of the HHRC letter:

In the wake of the world's response to the (terrorist) tragedies in Paris and turmoil in Beirut this week (recently) our (Maine Governor LePage) Governor has announced that he would oppose any efforts to bring Syrian refugees to Maine. While our history is crowded with efforts to limit groups of people from coming to the US, there is little question that immigration has been one of the most important factors in making the US a world power, and is, arguably, the key to Maine's success as a state.

U.S. law is very clear on immigration. The issue is under Federal control, based on article six of the US Constitution, and has been reviewed several times by the Supreme Court,most notably in Hines vs Davidowitz in 1941. (Under the preemption doctrine, enforcement of a state alien registration law was barred by the federal Alien Registration Act.)

Maine Governor Samuel Cony (Governor 1864-1867) b. 1811 d. 1870 in Augusta ME "...invite the freest immigration...."

Since the end of the Civil War, when Republican Governor Samuel Cony declared, "From the very foundation of our government, it has been our policy to invite the freest immigration from every portion of the earth," Maine has had a love/hate relationship with its immigrants. But, for Governor LePage to take an anti-immigrant stance seems somewhat disingenuous. The largest group for immigrants to Maine in the 19th century were the French Canadians, including the Governor's ancestors. At the time, there was also a good deal of rhetoric and discrimination against them. Most people know that the Ku Klux Klan movement in Maine in the 1920s, was mostly focused on the French-Catholic immigrants from Canada. Governor LePage has talked about the racism he felt growing up in "Little Canada", in Lewiston. He is, by all accounts, a self-made man, and a proud model of the success an immigrant can have in Maine, as are our Senator Susan Collins (Irish and English), former Senator Snowe (Greek), former Senator Mitchell (Lebanese) and many other prominent Mainers. 
This fall, at the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, we have had a chalkboard in the lobby asking visitors, "What Country Are Your Ancestors From?" After two months, the board is filled with answers that reveal that Maine, like the rest of the country, is made up of people from all over the world. Of course, we'd expect to see Canada, France, Ireland, England, Sweden, Germany, Finland and mostly western European countries listed on the board. But, we might be surprised to see Guam, Jamaica, Belarus, Senegal, Lithuania, Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Russia, Poland, China, Humgary, Turkey, Brazil, Iceland, Australia, Rwanda, Lebanon and Sudan were listed; and, of course, a few people wrote that their ancestors are Native Americans.

It's interesting to note that our post Civil War interest in immigrants was fueled mostly by the fact that so many of our Maine boys got out, saw the possibilities in the rest of the country and decided not to come back home. That's what caused Governor Cony to make his bold statement that immigrants would be welcomed in Maine. 
A few years later, Maine's Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain was Governor. He encouraged Maine residents to think differently about the issue of the outward migration of our youth. "We have been too long content with the doubtful compliment that 'Maine is a good State to go from.'  She must be made a good State to come to and to stay in."  We've complained for about 150 years now about our young people leaving, perhaps it's time for us to revisit that argument as well.  Maybe, we should try harder to welcome everyone who wants to come to Maine or stay in Maine. And yes, that includes immigrants and the children of immigrants.

Maine is a rich tapestry made up of individuals from around the world, and while we know that most immigrants and all refugees are vetted, we disagree with the concept that someone should be considered subversive or a danger to the American people simply because of their country of origin, religion, color of their skin, sexual orientation, or any other broad measure of a group of people. That's surely not an American or Maine measure of a person.  As Dr. (Martin Luther) King suggested, many years ago, we should measure people by the content of their character.  Maine's character is clearly composed of people from all over the world.  Rather than opposing those who would seek refuge in a safe land and contribute to our society, we should embrace them and remember, in their quest for a new home, they're very much like our own ancestors.  

Written by David Greenham, Program Director, Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine.

Obviously, Republicans have a big problem understanding the Scripture they claim to revere.  2 Corinthians.  Sadly, they do not advocate for the intent of this Biblical passage. For selfish reasons, Republicans do not believe in providing liberty for those who are seeking the spirit of freedom.  

Comparing the Khmer Rouge with the ethnic cleansing of Yazidis

An article by journalist Rose George describes how one humanitarian woman compared the carnage perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (The Killing Fields), with the ongoing and systematic ethnic cleansing of the Yazidis population, in Syria.

Rose George writes "All I can do is tell their stories" in the February 2016 "The Rotarian" magazine.

In the article titled, "All I can do is tell their stories," she reports:

"Evin traveled to Cambodia, where, having read about the Khmer Rouge, she met people who had suffeed under the regime. "I learned so much," she says, and she shared her own knowledge with others...."

The Yazidi are a Kurdish people who follow an old religion related to Zoroastrianism, but which has remnants of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are located primarily in the Nineveh province of northern Iraq. The sacred valley of Lalish is the center point of their culture. (Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. It was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iran, approximately 3500 years ago.) 

An icon representing Zoroastrianism

Link to the Rose George article and blog are here:

http://oneturkeyrun.blogspot.com/2016/01/syrian-refugees-tragically-brave.html

Budapest The Great Synagogue October 2015 Dohány Street Synagogue

I'm posting the blog about our October 2015 visit to The Great Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary. It's the largest synagogue in Europe.  During World War II, it was also the site of a mass murder of Hungarian Jews.  Many of the victims are buried in the Holocaust Memorial adjacent to the synagogue.

 The Great Synagogue in Budapest Hungary where we visited in October 2015

Name is also Dohány Street Synagogue 

Internet picture Dohány Street Synagogue

Jewish Museum

Aerial view of the Dohány Street Synagogue complex

The Jewish Museum was constructed on the plot where Theodor Herzl's two-story Classicist style house used to stand, adjoining the Dohány synagogue.[12] The Jewish Museum was built in 1930 in accordance with the synagogue's architectural style and attached in 1931 to the main building. It holds the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection, a collection of religious relics of the Pest Hevrah Kaddishah (Jewish Burial Society), ritual objects of Shabbat and the High Holidays and a Holocaust room.

Heroes' Temple

The arcade and the Heroes' Temple, which seats 250 people and is used for religious services on weekdays and during the winter time, was added the Dohány Street Synagogue complex in 1931.

The Heroes' Temple was designed by Lázlo Vágó and Ferenc Faragó and serves as a memorial to Hungarian Jews who gave their lives during World War I. 

This particular post is published to the same blog where I described our sobering visit to The Killing Fields, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where we visited several years ago. Both visits were sobering for providing evidence about man's senseless cruelty to man.

Po Pot led the evil Khmer Rouge to murder Cambodians, a genocide without cause. He presided over a totalitarian dictatorship, in which his government made urban dwellers move to the countryside to work in collective farms and on forced labour projects. The combined effects of executions, strenuous working conditions, malnutrition and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population

Likewise, there was no reason for the Hungarians to participate in the 1944-45 genocide of the Budapest Jews. 

In fact, our Hungarian guide in Budapest told us the Jews were persecuted with an unfathomable vengeance, so much so "even the Germans were amazed at their tactics". 

Our Hungarian guide "Andre" said even the Germans were amazed by the persecution of the Jews by the "Hungarian Nazis" in Budapest. (Outside of The Great Synagogue)

Holocaust Memorial at The Great Synagogue in Budapest

Our guide said, even though the Jewish tradition is not to bury their dead at the synagogue, the exception was to create a memorial with graves of the victims of the Budapest Holocaust victims. This memorial was funded by the American actor, Tony Curtis.

The Dohány Street Synagogue (Hungarian: Dohány utcai zsinagóga/nagy zsinagóga, Hebrew: בית הכנסת הגדול של בודפשט‎ bet hakneset hagadol šel budapešt), also known as The Great Synagogue or Tabakgasse Synagogue, is a historical building in Erzsébetváros, the 7th district of Budapest, Hungary. It is the largest synagogue in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It seats 3,000 people and is a centre of Neolog Judaism.

The synagogue was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, with the decoration based chiefly on Islamic models fromNorth Africa and medieval Spain (the Alhambra). The synagogue's Viennese architect, Ludwig Förster, believed that no distinctively Jewish architecture could be identified, and thus chose "architectural forms that have been used by oriental ethnic groups that are related to the Israelite people, and in particular the Arabs".The interior design is partly by Frigyes Feszl.

The Dohány Street Synagogue complex consists of the Great Synagogue, the Heroes' Temple, the graveyard, the Memorial and the Jewish Museum, which was built on the site on which Theodore Herzl's house of birth stood. Dohány Street itself, a leafy street in the city center, carries strong Holocaust connotations as it constituted the border of the Budapest Ghett

Holocaust memorial stone in the Jewish museum in Budapest Hungary

Built in a residential area between 1854-1859 by the Jewish community of Pest according to the plans of Ludwig Förster, the monumental synagogue has a capacity of 2,964 seats (1,492 for men and 1,472 in the women's galleries) making it the largest in Europe and one of the largest working synagogues in the world (after the Beit Midrash of Ger in Jerusalem, the Belz Great Synagogueand Temple Emanu-el in New York City).  The consecration of the synagogue took place on 6 September 1859.

The synagogue was bombed by the Hungarian pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party on 3 February 1939. It was used as a base for German Radio and also as a stable during World War II, the building suffered some severe damage from aerial raids during the Nazi Occupation but especially during the Siege of Budapest.

During the Communist era the damaged structure became again a prayer house for the much-diminished Jewish community. Its restoration started in 1991 and ended in 1998. The restoration was financed by the state and by private donations.

Holocaust Memorial at The Great Synagogue

Budapest street flowering column at The Great Synagogue

In 1944, the Dohány Street Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto for the Budapest Jews and served as shelter for a lot of people. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during the winter 1944-1945 are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue.

It's not customary to have a cemetery next to a synagogue, but the establishment of the 3000 m2 cemetery was the result of historical circumstances. In 1944, as a part of the Eichmann-plan, 70.000 Jews were relocated to the Ghetto of Pest. Until January 18, 1945, when the Russians liberated the ghetto, around 8-10.000 people had died, although, one part of the deceased were transferred to the Kozma Street Cemetery, but 2.000 people were buried in the makeshift cemetery. In memory of those who had died, there is a memorial by the sculptor, Imre Varga, depicting a weeping willow with the names and tattoo numbers of the dead and disappeared just behind the Synagogue, in the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park.

L'Heureux photographs

Raul Wallenberg Memorial Park is home to the Holocaust Memorial, located in the backyard of the Great Synagogue.  the Holocaust Memorial is also known as the Emanuel Tree (by Imre Varga), is a weeping willow tree. Each leaf is a memoril for a person who was killed in the Hungarian Holocaust. The memorial was inspired by the American actor Tony Curtis, who founded the Emanual Foundation, in New York City.

Forty Years after the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia - world attention still a challenge

Does Khmer Rouge sound like a harbinger of  evil ISIS?

By the time the tyrannical rule of Pol Pot - or Brother Number One - was toppled four years later, an estimated two million Cambodians had been killed by execution, starvation or overwork as the Khmer Rouge drove the country back to Year Zero, through an agrarian peasant revolution. - Al Jazeera


Although the evil Khmer Rouge were eventually defeated in Cambodia, their horrific atrocites, inflicted against their own people, still haunt the nation, because few were held responsible.

Cambodians mark 40 years since Khmer Rouge takeover

Killing Fields Memorial in Phnom Penh

Events in Phnom Penh commemorate start of Communist rule which exterminated quarter of country's population.

Survivors 40 years to the day since the Khmer Rouge marched on Phnom Penh, ending a civil war but heralding an era that would kill a quarter of Cambodians and leave the capital a ghost town.

A few hundred people, including monks and elderly regime survivors, gathered early on Friday at Choeung Ek - the most notorious of the regime's Killing Fields - on the capital's outskirts, burning incense and chanting Buddhist prayers at a memorial stupa housing the skulls and bones of victims.

The event commemorated the April 17, 1975, triumph of the Khmer Rouge over the US-backed republican army of Lon Nol and, with it, the start of four years of a genocidal communist revolution.

Initially, the Khmer Rouge were given a cautious welcome by Phnom Penh's war-weary residents as they entered the city astride tanks, their distinctive red-chequered scarves fluttering behind them.

But soon enough cadres began to evacuate the city of two million people at gunpoint, in one of the largest forced migrations in recent history.

The sick, elderly and very young perished, their bodies littering the roadsides, as "bourgeois" city dwellers were marched into the countryside to scratch a living from the parched soil.

By the time the tyrannical rule of Pol Pot - or Brother Number One - was toppled four years later, an estimated two million Cambodians had been killed by execution, starvation or overwork as the Khmer Rouge drove the country back to Year Zero through an agrarian peasant revolution.

"Forty years ago Pol Pot turned Cambodia into a hell - a ghost land," Huot Huorn, 67, told AFP news agency with tears in her eyes after lighting incense for the 36 relatives she lost to the regime.

"I still hate that regime ... their sins are vivid in my eyes now. They starved us, jailed people with no food and water until they died ... I saw them smash children's heads against a tree trunk."

(Although Cambodians can never forget the terror of the Khmer Rouge, the world, unfortunately, seems to have passed over this terrible era.)  

Richard Engel "Tweets" This Message Embedded from his Twitter Feed

Richard Engel Twitter June 4 2013:  (Sounds horrifically like Cambodia in the 1970s, all over again)

At least 147 people whose bodies were found in #Aleppo’s river between Jan- March probably executed in govt-run areas, Human Rights Watch
5:40 AM - 4 Jun 2013

Re-blog from Maine Writer - Cambodia - Syria and Other Masacres: A Reader Responds

SATURDAY, JUNE 01, 2013

http://oneturkeyrun.blogspot.com/2013/06/blog-reader-comments-on-syria.html

This blog includes a horrifying list of carnage perpetrated by humanity - and calls for action to prevent more carnage, like the genocide in Cambodia, from happening in Syria. 

Blog Reader Comments on Syria - Challenges "Cold War" Mentality

"Julie, you're writing like a Cold War Warrior!" says blog reader Joe, from Bangor Maine.

He's responding to the May 31, 2013 blog calling on President Obama to employ brilliant international leadership to prevent or deter the Russians from sending military aid to the Syrian government.  This escalating crises has challenged President Obama's international leadership. 

So far, the President has kept our ground troops out of the Syrian civil war, in spite of urgent calls by Senator John McCain to provide assistance to the rebels, many of them being massacred, because they're Christians. 

Joe writes:  Dear Julie:  Yup and Mao (Tse-tung) was involved in the deaths of up to 75,000,000 people in China,  far more than Hitler...and what did the U.S., and President Nixon, and John F. Kennedy and other presidents do?.......Nixon went to China and later established diplomatic relations....."

"Pol Pot killed up to 3,000,000 in Cambodia, what did the U.S. do?"

"Uganda dictator Idi Amin murdered about 1,000,000, and what did the US do?"

"The U.S. Invaded Iraq and overturned Saddam Hussein, a minor league murderer compared to these mass murderers above...and what has happened? The U.S. killed more people than he did,  10 years later after we pulled out ....and, they're STILL FIGHTING .."

"There were 1,000,000 Christians in Iraq during Hussein's time ....now it is down to 300,000 and dropping.....War has many ugly unforeseen consequences...."

"... our (American) stumbling and bumbling interventions do nothing but make matters worse in many cases.  God Bless.  Joe"

Okay, Joe.  You're right.  But, Syria now has an overt offer of Russian intervention. 

In my opinion, Russia increased the heat in an already incendiary situation by offering military aid to the Syrian government, in spite of President Obama's request for them not to do so.  

Joe's answer is this: "It's extremely complex ....I do NOT believe Russia is making the right moves....they're wrong...but our World Cop interventions have created a threat to our freedoms.  (Besides)...Russia has a naval base to protect inTartus, Syria"

Tartus hosts a Soviet naval supply and maintenance facility, under a 1971 agreement with Syria, which is still staffed by Russian naval personnel. 

Joe adds:  "...the Russians have their only Naval Base in that part (Syria) of the world ...the Soviet Union lost 25,000,000 people in World War 2. They have fears and so would we if we had lost that many....Also, there are a number of relationships with Syria including religious and similar groups of people..."

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) provided an op-ed on this crises in this CNN post:

Helping Syrian Rebels is a Dangerous Risk

By Rand Paul, Special to CNN
(CNN) -- The United States has a history of often picking sides in Middle East conflicts to its own detriment. Arguably one of the greatest beneficiaries of the Iraq war was Iran, which now enjoys more power and influence with the elimination of its historic enemy.  Today, Iraq is unstable and its future uncertain.

So, with all due respect to Joe in Bangor and to Senator Paul Rand, the only solution to the Syrian massacre during the current bloodbath going on in the country is to do nothing at all.  Let's allow Russia to sell arms to the Syrian government without intervening.

Okay.  If doing nothing demonstrates American leadership, then so be it.  At least, in doing nothing, the US will be consistent. 

When America abandoned Viet Nam, millions of South Vietnamese were victimized by the victorious Viet Cong, because they were loyal and believed the US would be there for them.   

Americans, led by George Bush 1st, let down the Kurd population after the war called Operation Desert Storm, and they were slaughtered.  In the aftermath of of Operation Desert Storm,, the United States encouraged Kurds and Shiites to rebel against the Hussein regime, but, then withdrew and refused to support them, leaving an unknown number to be slaughtered. At one point, Hussein's regime killed as many as 2,000 suspected Kurdish rebels every day. Some two million Kurds hazarded the dangerous trek through the mountains to Iran and Turkey, hundreds of thousands dying in the process.

So, I suppose President Obama doesn't need to exert any internationally inspired leadership at all to help the Syrian rebels in the face of Russian intervention.  He can just do what his predecessors have done - absolutely nothing. 

I've been to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  I've visited the Killing Fields of Cambodia.  I've spoken with Vietnamese loyalists who were sent to repatriation camps by the Viet Cong.

Doing nothing is just as destructive as doing something.

Labels: Cold War, Russia, Syria