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Community Forum · Est. 2006
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#1
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04-20-2010, 11:02 AM
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Self-Immolation and Burn Death Photos Including Ryszard Siwiec, Poland 1968
Ryszard Siwiec, a Polish accountant and former Home Army soldier, set himself alight at Warsaw's Decade Stadium on September 8, 1968, during the national harvest festival. Around 100,000 people, including the country's party leadership, were present. His action protested the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia three weeks earlier. He was removed from the fire alive but died from his burns on September 12, four days later. Communist authorities suppressed accounts of the incident, and footage was not publicly screened until after 1989. He is generally considered the first person in Central or Eastern Europe to self-immolate against communist rule, preceding Jan Palach in Prague the following January. The remaining cases are unrelated to Siwiec and have not been identified. |
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#5
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04-20-2010, 04:31 PM
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Re: Self-Immolation and Burn Death Photos Including Ryszard Siwiec, Poland 1968
On June 11, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon, Vietnam.. Eye witness accounts state that Thich Quang Duc and at least two fellow monks arrived at the intersection by car, Thich Quang Duc got out of the car, assumed the traditional lotus position and the accompanying monks helped him pour gasoline over himself. He ignited the gasoline by lighting a match and burned to death in a matter of minutes. David Halberstam, a reporter for the New York Times covering the war in Vietnam, gave the following account: I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think…. As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him. |