The aftermath of Oradour’s War

June 20, 2010 · Posted in France, Ghost Towns, Monuments, Museum, Ruins · Comment 

We set up the machine guns in the barn, weighing their tripod legs down with heavy chunks of firewood. When the men were shepherded in they saw the black gun muzzles and began to panic, shouting out warnings to their fellows in back. We answered with soft words, hushed voices, our hands on our pistols. “Only the sympathizers”, we soothed. “You’re free to go if you’re not a sympathizer. Are you a sympathizer?” They shook their heads and filed in.

We took to the guns and shot them all in the legs. The muzzle-flashes lit the glum barn like a lightning storm, the torrential explosion of munitions its own rolling wave of thunder. Afterwards was a moment of silence, then the moaning began. None of us wanted to venture into that tangle of thrashing limbs, so we tossed buckets of gasoline over the bucking creatures nearest to us, followed by a sparking flare. The place flamed to life like Dante’s Inferno. We didn’t even wait for the screaming to stop before heading off to blow up their families.

Oradour-sur-Glane is a village in west-central France. The original village was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site and the original has been maintained as a memorial.

Photo by Ramos Andrade.

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Hiroshima A-bomb dome

April 1, 2010 · Posted in Haikyo, Hiroshima, Military Installations, Monuments, Vaults · 17 Comments 

At 8:15 on August 6 1945 the first nuclear bomb in the history of warfare detonated over Hiroshima, obliterating the city within a 1.5 mile radius and killing outright some 80,000 people, with around another 70,000 dying of radiation and burns by the end of the year. Japanese pilots flying on reconnaissance missions to the city after all radio transmissions went dead said that `practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death`.

The A-bomb dome (genbaku dome, originally Hiroshima Trade Promotion Hall) was only 150 meters away from the blast hypocenter. It survived because of its strong stone construction, while almost every building around it burned to the ground.

Hiroshima A-bomb dome.

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7 Bizarre Monuments of Saddam’s Iraq

October 12, 2009 · Posted in Iraq, Monuments, Ruins · 3 Comments 

When Iraq lost the war to Coalition Forces back in 2003 the iconic image was one of American soldiers tearing down a great bronze statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. Soon after giant busts of his head were removed from the Palace of the Republican Guard. These destructions were symbols of victory, symbols of an end to tyranny. But in the half-war half-rebuilding period that followed, Iraqis were faced with hundreds more remnants of Hussein’s 24-year rule, monuments written in bronze and stone across the country. Was it right to tear them all down, thereby erasing any memory of the brutal dictator and his Baath regime, or should some of them remain to commemorate a past that really did happen?

Monuments of Saddam’s Iraq

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The exploded bust of Ferdinand Marcos

September 15, 2009 · Posted in Monuments, Philippines, Ruins · 9 Comments 

At the height of his power in the 1970′s former president/dictator of the Philippines Ferdinand E. Marcos commissioned the construction of a 99-foot concrete bust in own image, situated on a cliff overlooking the South China Sea around 130 km North of Manila. In 2002 it was torn apart in an explosion, the eyes, forehead and cheeks blown to bits- suspects included left-wing activists, members of a local tribe – or possibly looters hunting for one of Marcos’ legendary treasure troves.

The bust was completed in the early 1980s when Mr Marcos was still in power, but fell into disrepair after he was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1986. He died in exile three years later.

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