peter fechter (14 january 1944 – 17 august 1962)
aged 18, one of the first victims of the berlin wall’s border guards while trying to cross over to what was then west berlin.
about 1 year after the construction of the wall, fechter attempted to flee from the gdr (german democratic republic) together with his friend helmut kulbeik. the plan was to hide in a carpenter’s workshop near the wall in zimmerstrasse and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window into the so-called death-strip (a strip running between the main wall and a parallel fence which they had recently started to construct), run across it, and climb over the 2 metre (6.5 ft) wall topped with barbed wire into the kreuzberg district of west berlin near checkpoint charlie.
when both reached the wall, guards fired at them. although kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. he fell back into the death-strip on the eastern side, where he remained in view of western onlookers, including journalists. despite his screams, he received no medical assistance either from the east or the west side. he bled to death after approximately 1 hour. as a result of his death, hundreds in west berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting “murderers!” at the border guards.
the lack of medical assistance for peter fechter was attributed to mutual fear: western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him, although according to a report in time magazine, a u.s. second-lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the us commandant in west berlin to stand firm and do nothing. it also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the west had indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic pathologist otto prokop, “fechter had no chance of survival. the shot in the right hip had caused severe internal injuries.” likewise the head of the gdr border platoon stated that he was afraid to intervene, because of an incident just 3 days earlier when a gdr soldier rudi arnstadt had probably been shot by a western federal policeman. nonetheless, the gdr border soldiers did retrieve peter fechter’s dead body an hour after he had fallen.
+: read more
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
song: room 13 (black flag cover - feat. corey taylor)
album: rise above - 24 black flag songs to benefit the west memphis three
band: rollins band
usa - 2002
the album features guest vocals by henry rollins, iggy pop, corey taylor, tom araya, mike patton, ice-t, lemmy, tim armstrong, keith morris, among others.
the west memphis three are three men who were tried and convicted as teenagers in 1994 of the 1993 murders of 3 boys in west memphis, arkansas. damien echols was sentenced to death, jessie misskelley, jr. was sentenced to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and jason baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment. during the trial, the prosecution asserted that the children were killed as part of a satanic ritual. a number of documentaries have been based on the case, and celebrities and musicians have held fund raisers in the belief that they are innocent.
+: the album / the case (wikipedia)
ted bundy was accused of torturing, raping, and assassinating at least 100 women, including a girl. he went through 3 trials and countless appeals before his case was resolved.
john wayne gacy was accused of torturing, sodomizing, and assassinating 33 males between the ages of 9 and 20 years. in 1980, a jury resolved his case.
they had due process of law. why does a guantánamo prisoner not?
+: donald “pee wee” gaskins
song: the words that maketh murder
album: let england shake
artist: pj harvey
england - 2011
i’ve seen and done things I want to forget;
i’ve seen a corporal whose nerves were shot
climbing behind the fierce, gone sun,
i’ve seen flies swarming everyone,
soldiers fell like lumps of meat.
these, these, these are the words-
the words that maketh murder.
what if i take my problem to the united nations?
: gilles de rais
a leader in the french army and a companion-in-arms of joan of arc.
gilles served as a commander in the royal army, and fought alongside joan of arc against the english and their burgundian allies during the hundred years war.
after 1432 gilles engaged in a series of child murders, his victims possibly numbering in the hundreds were torturated, raped and mutilated. the killings came to an end in 1440 when he was hanged -before torching the body- on 26 october.
gilles de rais has had some cultural impact and is one among several candidates believed to be the inspiration for the 1697 fairy tale bluebeard by charles perrault.
song: where the wild roses grow
album: murder ballads
artists: nick cave & the bad seeds (feat. kylie minogue)
australia - 1996
all beauty must die.
+: cave was inspired to write ‘where the wild roses grow’ after listening to the traditional song, ‘down in the willow garden’, a tale of a man courting a woman and killing her while they are out together.
1937 nanking massacre, china
mass murder and war rape that occurred during the 6 week period following the japanese capture of the city of nanjing (nanking), former capital of the republic of china, in 1937 during the 2nd sino-japanese war. hundreds of thousands of chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped by soldiers of the imperial japanese army.
an accurate estimation of the death toll in the massacre is never achieved because most of the japanese military records on the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of japan in 1945. the international military tribunal of the far east estimates more than 200,000 casualties in the incident; china’s official estimate is about 300,000, based on the evaluation of the nanjing war crimes tribunal. estimates from japanese historians vary widely, in the vicinity of 40,000–200,000. some japanese scholars even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that any deaths were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. these negationists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.
although the japanese government has admitted the acts of the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other violence committed by the imperial japanese army after the fall of nanking, some japanese officials have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple of japanese nationalism.
eyewitness accounts of westerners and chinese present after the fall of the city state that over the course of 6 weeks, japanese troops engaged in rape, murder, theft, arson, and other war crimes. some of these accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect chinese civilians from harm, including the diaries of german john rabe and american minnie vautrin. other accounts include first-person testimonies of the nanking massacre survivors, eyewitness reports of journalists (both western and japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. an american missionary, john magee, stayed behind to provide a 16 mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the nanking massacre.
the osaka mainichi shimbun and its sister newspaper the tokyo nichi nichi shimbun covered a “contest” between 2 japanese officers, toshiaki mukai and tsuyoshi noda, in which the 2 men were described as vying with one another to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword. the competition supposedly took place en route to nanking, directly prior to the infamous “nanking massacre”.
both officers supposedly surpassed their goal during the heat of battle, making it impossible to determine which officer had actually won the contest. therefore, they decided to begin another contest, with the aim being 150 kills.
noda himself, on returning to his hometown, admitted during a speech:
“i killed only 4 or 5 with sword in the real combat…. after we captured an enemy trench, we’d tell them, ‘ni lai lai.’ (which can be translated as “you, come, come”) the chinese soldiers were stupid enough to come out the trench toward us one after another. we’d line them up and cut them down from one end to the other.”
a group of foreign expatriates headed by john rabe had formed the 15-man international committee on november 22 and mapped out the nanking safety zone in order to safeguard civilians in the city, where the population numbered from 200,000 to 250,000.
the international military tribunal for the far east estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly. a large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. the women were often killed immediately after the rape, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina.
on november 12, 1948, on the basis of a simple majority of the 11 judges conforming the nanking war crimes tribunal, general matsui and foreign minister hirota, with 5 other convicted class-a war criminals, were sentenced to death by hanging. general hisao tani was also sentenced to death.
+: nanking-massacre.com (viewer discretion advised)
+: wikipedia (viewer discretion advised)
+: nanking @ youtube
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
song: sorrow
album: sorrow | hope
artist: yani
venezuela - 2010
all my wishes are lost while the world continues its course
when i leave everything will remain
will remain the same
+:
myspace (breve reseña y 3 de sus singles)
youtube (video musical de hope)
youtube (documental no time, no place)
justicia para yani @ facebook
justicia para yani @ twitter
ventas y pedidos: info aqui o enmemoriadeyani@gmail.com
a 1 año de tu muerte y tu asesinato sigue impune, pero siempre se te piensa y se te recuerda con tu gran sonrisa. no se me ocurre mejor uso del tumblr que hacer que la voz de alguien (yani en este caso) sea escuchada…reblog!
giovanni emilio conte trezza (yani) †
febrero 4, 1988 - septiembre 5, 2009
yani - no time, no place. (documental)
parte 2/2. 8 minutos
in the mid 2009’s yani started producing his 1st solo album, after over a year working on the songs, he decided he was ready to start. all this work had as it’s result the making of sorrow/hope an album with 10 songs composed and interpreted by yani, with the help of robert hayling (keyboards) and claudio ramírez (producer).
yani died little after taping the voices of the last song: “hope”. the cd was introduced after his death in may of 2010, without him having the chance to ever hear it. this documentary is the making of sorrow/hope, and it’s the only taped material left from yani.
yani - no time, no place. (documental)
parte 1/2. 9 minutos
a mediados del 2009 yani comenzó a producir su 1er disco solista, después de más de 1 año trabajando en los temas, decidió que estaba listo para sacarse la piedrita del zapato. este trabajo dio como resultado sorrow/hope, un álbum con 10 temas compuestos e interpretados por yani, con la ayuda de robert hayling (teclados) y claudio ramírez (producción).
yani murió poco después de grabar las voces de la última canción, “hope”. el cd fue presentado de manera póstuma en mayo del 2010 sin que él jamás lo hubiese escuchado. este documental es una muestra del proceso de grabación de sorrow/hope, el único material grabado que queda de yani.
