"Thank you for giving me the possibility to share my story"
18-07-2010"The boy took a piece of bread out of his pocket, a small piece of brown bread, held it out to the soldier and said: "Please, don’t shoot me and I’ll give you the bread…”
Forcing someone to witness the torture and/or killing of another person can be torture in itself. Indeed, the practice is as widely used as it is gruesome.
A refugee from Chechnya, now living in Georgia, recounts his harrowing story in the book My name is…, published by the Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of torture Victims (GRCT), a member of the IRCT.
"I was born in Kazakhstan. My parents had been deported from their native Chechnya. I remember returning to Chechnya only vaguely. I see, as if in a dream, my two sisters, my father and our low-ceilinged house with its slanting roof. I also see two rooms and a small corridor separating them. I see the only bed in which all my family slept before my father made a long wooden berth along the wall. He was a good carpenter. I also remember a mulberry tree in front of our house.
I remember listening to stories throughout my childhood. About my relatives and close friends of our family being lost during the deportation or being killed by the Soviet soldiers. In the evenings when our family got together, my father and mother always spoke about it. I heard the same stories elsewhere too: the hardships people had suffered when on February 23, 1944 at the coldest time of the year they were driven out of their houses half naked and forced on a long journey without being permitted to take a single thing from their home.
I listened to these stories as far-away fairy-tales. When I grew up, I began to think about them anew. They had left a deep wound in my soul. As I got older, this wound would not heal. The echo of the deportation and the brutality my people suffered make my feelings very intense.
We lived in great poverty in my childhood. But my father still managed to buy a bicycle for me; I nearly burst with pride. In the whole village only two boys had bicycles, and I used to give a ride first to the boys and then to the girls. It was a wonderful present.
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... boys saw their mothers raped by the soldiers who looted and burned their houses. I recall many events from this war but; it is very painful for me.
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A year after I got married the Soviet Union fell apart. In 1994 the genocide of my nation began. I witnessed the storming of Grozny. I have myself gathered people’s torn-off limbs and remains of human bodies – women, men, and children. We have been constantly on the move since then. My house was destroyed during the first Chechen war. We have not had a house of our own since then. It is as if we have got accustomed to this kind of life. We have food but we have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow.
In the second Chechen war (1999) boys saw their mothers raped by the soldiers who looted and burned their houses. I recall many events from this war but; it is very painful for me.
There were concentration camps; the Russian government called them "filtration camps”. I was in such a camp. I was only there for a short while, but I saw a great number of horrors – raping of women and men. A boy told me: "They pushed a stick up my anus and then waving it before my nose, made me smell it saying, here, smell the aroma of the freedom!”
There were cases when a woman was raped in the presence of her own brother.
I will never forget the suffering I experienced there. Physical pain is a terrible thing but one can bear it. It is much more difficult to endure moral abuse. I saw with my own eyes a boy of about nine or ten being shot. I saw a Russian soldier aiming his gun at him. The boy took a piece of bread out of his pocket, a small piece of brown bread, held it out to the soldier and said: "Please, don’t shoot me and I’ll give you the bread…”
When I recall this episode I realise that I’d rather have been killed then and there than to watch the boy die. How can you forget a thing like that? The soldier shooting the child with a sub-machine gun… And what was the child’s crime?
I knew that I should have done something to save the boy. But I failed to do anything. If I had tried to interfere I would not be sitting here now, and I would have destroyed a great many lives besides. But I have been blaming myself for the death of that little boy. It is very hard to live with such a huge feeling guilt. When I recall what happened I feel a beast is awakening in me and I have to make a great effort to calm myself down – I feel intense hatred towards those who did it. Then I calm down and try to tell myself that they also have mothers, brothers, sisters. I wish I had not seen it, had never felt it. But I was forced to.
I would like to tell all people that we are not immortal, that we are only guests in this world. Yesterday we were young and today it is already time for us to leave. The time we are entitled to in this world is very short. This is why I tell the mankind to spend this instantaneous life smiling at one another, sharing one another’s troubles, supporting and helping one another. Man needs very little. It is important to learn how to rejoice at the happiness of others.
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I’m very grateful to your centre. However melancholy and depressed I might feel, after I have come here and stayed with you for some time I feel better.
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I’m very grateful to your centre (1) . However melancholy and depressed I might feel, after I have come here and stayed with you for some time I feel better. Today when I was on my way here I was in a terribly bad mood. Now, after I have talked to you, opened my heart and – most importantly – talked to a person who is sincerely interested in my story, I am filled with positive energy. I feel relieved.
If one day your organisation would close down it would be a great shock for me. I come here as if I were coming to my own family. All the Chechen refugees I know say so. We are full of confidence and love for you. I have been living in Georgia for nine years. Your country has become my second native country, and today Georgia’s fate worries me as much as does the fate of my native Chechnya.
I thank you for giving me the possibility to share my story. I feel as if a very heavy burden had been removed from my shoulders – I feel virtue awakening. I always come here full of hope. I know I’ll come here, have a talk with you, then I’ll be taken to the kitchen and offered a cup of tea. And when I leave I’ll carry with me the feeling that I’m a human being. It is as if I come here to have it confirmed."
1 - The Georgian Center for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of torture Victims (GRCT), an IRCT member centre
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