Relief Camps Quotes

Montesquieu wrote: "I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve." If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.

Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: preserving one’s own life and that of the other fellow. It was typical to hear the prisoners, while they were being herded back to camp from their work sites in the evening, sigh with relief and say, “Well, another day is over.

In the early months of World War II, San Francisco's Fill-more district, or the Western Addition, experienced a visible revolution. On the surface it appeared to be totally peaceful and almost a refutation of the term “revolution.” The Yakamoto Sea Food Market quietly became Sammy's Shoe Shine Parlor and Smoke Shop. Yashigira's Hardware metamorphosed into La Salon de Beauté owned by Miss Clorinda Jackson. The Japanese shops which sold products to Nisei customers were taken over by enterprising Negro businessmen, and in less than a year became permanent homes away from home for the newly arrived Southern Blacks. Where the odors of tempura, raw fish and cha had dominated, the aroma of chitlings, greens and ham hocks now prevailed. The Asian population dwindled before my eyes. I was unable to tell the Japanese from the Chinese and as yet found no real difference in the national origin of such sounds as Ching and Chan or Moto and Kano. As the Japanese disappeared, soundlessly and without protest, the Negroes entered with their loud jukeboxes, their just-released animosities and the relief of escape from Southern bonds. The Japanese area became San Francisco's Harlem in a matter of months. A person unaware of all the factors that make up oppression might have expected sympathy or even support from the Negro newcomers for the dislodged Japanese. Especially in view of the fact that they (the Blacks) had themselves undergone concentration-camp living for centuries in slavery's plantations and later in sharecroppers' cabins. But the sensations of common relationship were missing. The Black newcomer had been recruited on the desiccated farm lands of Georgia and Mississippi by war-plant labor scouts. The chance to live in two-or three-story apartment buildings (which became instant slums), and to earn two-and even three-figured weekly checks, was blinding. For the first time he could think of himself as a Boss, a Spender. He was able to pay other people to work for him, i.e. the dry cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses, etc. The shipyards and ammunition plants brought to booming life by the war let him know that he was needed and even appreciated. A completely alien yet very pleasant position for him to experience. Who could expect this man to share his new and dizzying importance with concern for a race that he had never known to exist? Another reason for his indifference to the Japanese removal was more subtle but was more profoundly felt. The Japanese were not whitefolks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn't have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the base Only sentries were stirring--they guarded the place. At the foot of each bunk sat a helmet and boot For the Santa of Soldiers to fill up with loot. The soldiers were sleeping and snoring away As they dreamed of “back home” on good Christmas Day. One snoozed with his rifle--he seemed so content. I slept with the letters my family had sent. When outside the tent there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my rack to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash. Poked out my head, and yelled, “What was that crash?” When what to my thrill and relief should appear, But one of our Blackhawks to give the all clear. More rattles and rumbles! I heard a deep whine! Then up drove eight Humvees, a jeep close behind… Each vehicle painted a bright Christmas green. With more lights and gold tinsel than I’d ever seen. The convoy commander leaped down and he paused. I knew then and there it was Sergeant McClaus! More rapid than rockets, his drivers they came When he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Cohen! Mendoza! Woslowski! McCord! Now, Li! Watts! Donetti! And Specialist Ford!” “Go fill up my sea bags with gifts large and small! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away, all!” In the blink of an eye, to their trucks the troops darted. As I drew in my head and was turning around, Through the tent flap the sergeant came in with a bound. He was dressed all in camo and looked quite a sight With a Santa had added for this special night. His eyes--sharp as lasers! He stood six feet six. His nose was quite crooked, his jaw hard as bricks! A stub of cigar he held clamped in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. A young driver walked in with a seabag in tow. McClaus took the bag, told the driver to go. Then the sarge went to work. And his mission today? Bring Christmas from home to the troops far away! Tasty gifts from old friends in the helmets he laid. There were candies, and cookies, and cakes, all homemade. Many parents sent phone cards so soldiers could hear Treasured voices and laughter of those they held dear. Loving husbands and wives had mailed photos galore Of weddings and birthdays and first steps and more. And for each soldier’s boot, like a warm, happy hug, There was art from the children at home sweet and snug. As he finished the job--did I see a twinkle? Was that a small smile or instead just a wrinkle? To the top of his brow he raised up his hand And gave a salute that made me feel grand. I gasped in surprise when, his face all aglow, He gave a huge grin and a big HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! HO! from the barracks and then from the base. HO! HO! HO! as the convoy sped up into space. As the camp radar lost him, I heard this faint call: “HAPPY CHRISTMAS, BRAVE SOLDIERS! MAY PEACE COME TO ALL!

During World War II, the University of Minnesota’s Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene conducted what scientists and relief workers still regard today as a benchmark study of starvation. Partly funded by religious groups, including the Society of Friends, the study was intended to help the Allies cope with released concentration-camp internees, prisoners of war, and refugees. The participants were all conscientious objectors who volunteered to lose 25 percent of their body weight over six months. The experiment was supervised by Dr. Ancel Keys (for whom the K-ration was named). The volunteers lived a spare but comfortable existence at a stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota.

have exactly one hour to find your runaway table, get back your synco-whatsit, and install it in this engine, or the Argo II explodes, destroying Bunker Nine and most of the woods.” “Basically,” Leo said. Jason frowned. “We should alert the other campers. We might have to evacuate them.” “No!” Leo’s voice broke. “Look, the explosion won’t destroy the whole camp. Just the woods. I’m pretty sure. Like sixty-five percent sure.” “Well, that’s a relief,” Piper muttered. “Besides,” Leo said, “we don’t have time, and I—I can’t tell the others. If they find out how badly I’ve messed up…” Jason and Piper looked at each other. The clock display changed to 59:00. “Fine,” Jason said. “But we’d better hurry.

Villages that had been groaning beneath the iron weight of Stalin’s hand breathed a sigh of relief. And the many millions confined in the camps rejoiced. Columns of prisoners were marching to work in deep darkness. The barking of guard dogs drowned out their voices. And suddenly, as if the northern lights had flashed the words through their ranks: “Stalin has died.” As they marched on under guard, tens of thousands of prisoners passed the news on in a whisper: “He’s croaked...he’s croaked...” Repeated by thousand upon thousand of people, this whisper was like a wind. Over the polar lands it was still black night. But the ice in the Arctic Ocean had broken; you could now hear the roar of an ocean of voices.

In 1944-1945, Dr Ancel Keys, a specialist in nutrition and the inventor of the K-ration, led a carefully controlled yearlong study of starvation at the University of Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene. It was hoped that the results would help relief workers in rehabilitating war refugees and concentration camp victims. The study participants were thirty-two conscientious objectors eager to contribute humanely to the war effort. By the experiment's end, much of their enthusiasm had vanished. Over a six-month semi-starvation period, they were required to lose an average of twenty-five percent of their body weight." [...] p193 p193-194 "...the men exhibited physical symptoms...their movements slowed, they felt weak and cold, their skin was dry, their hair fell out, they had edema. And the psychological changes were dramatic. "[...] p194 "The men became apathetic and depressed, and frustrated with their inability to concentrate or perform tasks in their usual manner. Six of the thirty-two were eventually diagnosed with severe "character neurosis," two of them bordering on psychosis. Socially, they ceased to care much about others; they grew intensely selfish and self-absorbed. Personal grooming and hygiene deteriorated, and the men were moody and irritable with one another. The lively and cooperative group spirit that had developed in the three-month control phase of the experiment evaporated. Most participants lost interest in group activities or decisions, saying it was too much trouble to deal with the others; some men became scapegoats or targets of aggression for the rest of the group. Food - one's own food - became the only thing that mattered. When the men did talk to one another, it was almost always about eating, hunger, weight loss, foods they dreamt of eating. They grew more obsessed with the subject of food, collecting recipes, studying cookbooks, drawing up menus. As time went on, they stretched their meals out longer and longer, sometimes taking two hours to eat small dinners. Keys's research has often been cited often in recent years for this reason: The behavioral changes in the men mirror the actions of present-day dieters, especially of anorexics.

To be sure, late that afternoon, Union soldiers drifted into the Confederate camp, and soon knots of blue- and gray-clad men dotted the hills around Appomattox Court House; bullets were indeed replaced by backslaps, the rebel yell with a hearty Southern drawl, war fervor with the first hints of war nostalgia, unbridled hatred with nascent relief, and, by the next day, West Point mini-reunions were even breaking out at the McLean farmhouse. But

Hazel and Frank exchanged uneasy looks, like they’d already talked about this. ‘Percy …’Frank said. ‘If you want us to come along, we’re in. But are you sure? I mean … we know you’ve got tons of friends at the other camp. And you could pick anyone at Camp Jupiter now. If we’re not part of the seven, we’d understand –’ ‘Are you kidding?’ Percy said. ‘You think I’d leave my team behind? After surviving Fleecy’s wheat germ, running from cannibals and hiding under blue giant butts in Alaska? Come on!’ The tension broke. All three of them started cracking up, maybe a little too much, but it was a relief to be alive, with the warm sun shining, and not worrying – at least for the moment – about sinister faces appearing in the shadows of the hills.

It is the memory of this relief that will haunt her in the months to come. It will start to unsettle her tonight when they eat the lasagna and carve up the chocolate cake. It will continue to disturb her when Robbie leaves for boot camp, and later, when he is assigned to duty nearly three thousand miles away at Camp Lejeune. It will scald her when she learns he has been deployed to Iraq. Each day she will think back to this day and remember how she nodded and wiped her eyes. She will remember how Robbie’s body seemed to loosen, open up, how he squared his shoulders and embraced her as if he’d been practicing all his life for this moment. Sometimes she thinks she will be haunted every day by the memory of the relief she felt when Robbie asked her to let him go. And she did.

Surely you know the Thirty-Six Stratagems.” I shook my head. “The ancient Chinese art of deception.” “Oh, right. Sun Tzu. Jay Stoddard’s favorite.” “Forget Sun Tzu’s Art of War. That’s so commonplace.” He held up a gnarled, age-spotted finger. “Far more interesting than Sun Tzu is Chu-ko Liang. Perhaps the most brilliant military strategist ever. One of his stratagems was to defeat your enemy from within. Infiltrate the enemy’s camp in the guise of cooperation or surrender. Then, once you’ve discovered the source of his weakness, you strike.” Somehow the setting—the visitors’ room of the Altamont Correctional Facility—made my father’s advice a little less authoritative. As I walked out of the visitors’ room, I savored a feeling of relief. Because at that moment I knew that my brother was alive.

Just the once, though. Because standing there in Hilldale he’d felt nothing, which meant, he supposed, that Miss Beryl had been right; there was indeed such a thing as being too late. Normandy, the hedgerows, the Hürtgen Forest, the camps and finally Berlin…they all added up to this: too late. Had he found himself in war, as young men were often thought to do? Perhaps. He’d acquitted himself well in battle, proven competent in the face of fear. But had he also lost something he wasn’t sure he possessed to begin with? Had his self, the one Miss Beryl was worried about, been harmed? He remembered the look on her face when she first saw him again, an expression comprising relief and the old affection, but also a recognition that the boy who’d gone away to war both was and wasn’t the man who returned from it.

For people already in the together-forever camp—the people who had bought houses together, gotten married, were trying for a baby, had already become parents—my life was a perfect encapsulation of everything they had traded in. I had freedom, I had variety, I had a healthy disregard for my own security. While they planned a babysitter and an evening of bottle-feeds two weeks in advance just so they could spend three hours out of the house eating a dinner they hadn’t cooked, I was rampaging up a dew-wet meadow with someone who might try to undo my bra with his teeth. It was only later, as I sat on their sofas, ashen-faced and nails-bitten, telling them how I’d faked an orgasm or risked an STI or how I’d cried in the night because I’d felt so lonely, that I would catch them looking over at their partner with something like relief.

There were six hundred thousand Indian troops in Kashmir but the pogrom of the pandits was not prevented, why was that. Three and a half lakhs of human beings arrived in Jammu as displaced persons and for many months the government did not provide shelters or relief or even register their names, why was that. When the government finally built camps it only allowed for six thousand families to remain in the state, dispersing the others around the country where they would be invisible and impotent, why was that. The camps at Purkhoo, Muthi, Mishriwallah, Nagrota were built on the banks and beds of nullahas, dry seasonal waterways, and when the water came the camps were flooded, why was that. The ministers of the government made speeches about ethnic cleansing but the civil servants wrote one another memos saying that the pandits were simply internal migrants whose displacement had been self-imposed, why was that. The tents provided for the refugees to live in were often uninspected and leaking and the monsoon rains came through, why was that. When the one-room tenements called ORTs were built to replace the tents they too leaked profusely, why was that. There was one bathroom per three hundred persons in many camps why was that and the medical dispensaries lacked basic first-aid materials why was that and thousands of the displaced died because of inadequate food and shelter why was that maybe five thousand deaths because of intense heat and humidity because of snake bites and gastroenteritis and dengue fever and stress diabetes and kidney ailments and tuberculosis and psychoneurosis and there was not a single health survey conducted by the government why was that and the pandits of Kashmir were left to rot in their slum camps, to rot while the army and the insurgency fought over the bloodied and broken valley, to dream of return, to die while dreaming of return, to die after the dream of return died so that they could not even die dreaming of it, why was that why was that why was that why was that why was that.

That is exactly what I did once, for instance, when a rabbi from Eastern Europe turned to me and told me his story. He had lost his first wife and their six children in the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were gassed, and now it turned out that his second wife was sterile. I observed that procreation is not the only meaning of life, for then life in itself would become meaningless, and something which in itself is meaningless cannot be rendered meaningful merely by its perpetuation. However, the rabbi evaluated his plight as an orthodox Jew in terms of despair that there was no son of his own who would ever say Kaddish6 for him after his death. But I would not give up. I made a last attempt to help him by inquiring whether he did not hope to see his children again in Heaven. However, my question was followed by an outburst of tears, and now the true reason for his despair came to the fore: he explained that his children, since they died as innocent martyrs,7 were thus found worthy of the highest place in Heaven, but as for himself he could not expect, as an old, sinful man, to be assigned the same place. I did not give up but retorted, “Is it not conceivable, Rabbi, that precisely this was the meaning of your surviving your children: that you may be purified through these years of suffering, so that finally you, too, though not innocent like your children, may become worthy of joining them in Heaven? Is it not written in the Psalms that God preserves all your tears?8 So perhaps none of your sufferings were in vain.” For the first time in many years he found relief from his suffering through the new point of view which I was able to open up to him.

I'm sorry." "Sorry? For what?" He straightened and moved a bit closer, sounding honestly puzzled. "I am not much of a conversationalist, I'm afraid. I am not used to - to any of this. You must find this terribly..." "Terribly what?" "Boring." She faced him squarely then, for she refused to shy away from difficulties. He let out a short bark of laughter. "Boring? My dear Miss Bainbridge, boring is definitely something you are not." "I don't know how you can say that," she retorted somewhat crossly. "There is really no need for you to be polite. I haven't said any of the things I should. I have been blunt and no doubt impolite. I have never danced before with any man I haven't known since I could toddle. And now I cannot even come up with the most commonplace remark." His chuckle was low and warm [...]. "Oh, you know what I mean." Really the man was maddening. "You shouldn't laugh at someone who is admitting their grievous social ineptitude." "What else should I do?" His teeth glinted in the darkness. "Let me assure you that I have danced with a great many girls whom I have not known since childhood. And I have heard a great many commonplace remarks. It is, quite frankly, a relief to enjoy the quiet and cool of the garden without hearing that the weather is quite nice this evening or that the breeze is most refreshing or that the party is so enjoyable.

In his famous novel Fateless, the Hungarian writer and Nobel laureate Imre Kertész describes his arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was fifteen years old at the time, and he tells us in great detail how he attempted to interpret the many grotesque and appalling things he encountered on his arrival there as something positive and favorable for him. Otherwise he would not have survived his own mortal fear. Probably every child who has suffered abuse must assume an attitude like this in order to survive. These children reinterpret their perceptions in a desperate attempt to see as good and beneficial things that outside observers would immediately classify as crimes. Children have no choice. They must repress their true feelings if they have no “helping witness” to turn to and are helplessly exposed to their persecutors. Later, as adults lucky enough to encounter “enlightened witnesses,” they do have a choice. Then they can admit the truth, their truth; they can stop pitying and “understanding” their persecutors, stop trying to feel their unsustainable, disassociated emotions, and roundly denounce the things that have been done to them. This step brings immense relief for the body. It no longer has to forcibly remind the adult self of the tragic history it went through as a child. Once the adult self has decided to find out the whole truth about itself, the body feels understood, respected, and protected. I

He crawled over Geo and let himself be pulled down on top of him. He could swear there was an audible sigh of relief from the universe when their bodies met, like the ocean meeting the shore.

The Palestinian refugees languished in makeshifts camps, dependent on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for food, water, health services, and jobs. Meanwhile, their homes in Israel were settled by Holocaust survivors from Europe, were demolished, or fell into disrepair.

Six thirty and I could hear the gulls coming and going over the cliff and the now familiar early-morning battle with boots and tent flaps took far too long. As soon as I stood up I was overwhelmed. Not only by the desire to sit on a white, shiny, flushing toilet, but mainly by a wave of vertigo. Somehow in the dark and fog of the night before we had pitched the tent two meters from the edge of the cliff. Tent, path, scrap of grass, hundred-meter-drop. I regained my balance and looked for somewhere slightly disguised. All I could see was an open hillside with a small clump of gorse bushes. There was no waiting; it would have to do. I frantically tried to dig a hole with the heel of my boot - we hadn't carried a trowel for this, far too much weight and anyway we'd always find a public toilet. My thumb ripped through the waist of my leggings in the rush as I squatted behind the spikey sharp gorse with as much relief as Renton in 'Trainspotting'... 'Morning. You found somewhere to camp then?

firm, nonslip blanket, yoga mat, beach towel, or exercise or camping mat can be used to lie on. A thin (one- to three-inch) cushion or pillow can support your head and maintain the neck’s natural arch. Be careful: a thick pillow easily creates tension in the neck and this is to be avoided. An eye pillow, wash cloth, or scarf can cover your eyes. Even though your eyes will be closed, the extra darkness and weight of the eye cover enhances relaxation significantly. It calms the brain and reduces restlessness by preventing unnecessary eye movements. Do not cover your nose. Firm bolsters or pillows can be used to support your back and legs. Cover up with a cozy blanket to keep warm. Your body temperature is likely to drop during deep relaxation. Getting cold is a nuisance.

Was that—did she just grin at me? To me? A moment of stillness in this moment of pause. Without speaking, we let our gazes wander slow, groping to confirm relief in the other. There's a subdued excitement for the oncoming sharing of whatever's waiting for us behind that heavy iron door, exclusive—two solitary embers, isolated in their separate pits, far away but fanned by the same wind, the same night, alone with the night, their respective camps all gone to sleep, flaring softly cradled calling, out against the great dark backdrop of the great unknown.

Evie, is there anything I can do?” The name had slipped out, harking back to a time when he’d been more an older-brother-by-association to his fellow officers’ sisters. “Evie?” She cuddled closer, like a suffering animal looking for relief. “My mama used to rub my neck. I hate this.” She was helpless too, he realized, and equally unhappy about it. How strange, that after growing increasingly quarrelsome with each other, they’d find pride as their common ground. This temporary truce put him in mind of the way the French and British armies would declare an unspoken détente regarding the use of rivers and streams flowing between their respective warring camps on the Peninsula. “Let’s try something.” He pulled a lap rug from under the padded bench and spread it over his knees. “Down you go.” With him braced against a corner of the coach, he eased Eve facedown over the makeshift pillow on his knees. When she made no protest, he found her nape with his bare hand and started a slow massage. “Does that help?” “Heavenly.” He could feel her ease somewhat, though in deference to her condition, the horses were moving only at a walk. “Shall I take your pins out?” “Please, God. I can feel them. My hair hurts.” He might have smiled, but her torment was obvious in her voice. Carefully, so carefully, he eased the pins from her coiffure, until her hair hung down in a long, golden braid. She was unmoving against him while he alternated between gently squeezing the sides of her neck and rubbing her nape. They

Arriving at the hotel, like leaving it, was fraught with anxiety: there was always the question of ‘the tip’. Dad would probably have his shilling ready before he’d even signed the register, and when the porter had shown them up to their room would give it to him, as often as not misjudging the moment, not waiting till his final departure but slipping it to him while he was still demonstrating what facilities the room had to offer – the commodious wardrobe, the luxurious bathroom – so the tip came as an unwelcome interruption. Once the potentially dangerous procedure of arrival had been got through, the luggage fetched up, the porter endowed with his shilling, and the door finally closed, my parents’ apprehension gave way to huge relief – it was as if they’d bluffed their way into the enemy camp, and relief gave way to giggles as they explored the delights of the place. ‘Come look in here, Dad. It’s a spanking place – there’s umpteen towels.

This was encouraging to the refugees, but what lay beyond was even more so. At Mule Springs they would find supplies and horses and there, if not sooner, they would meet Mr. Woodworth and old Caleb Greenwood with their men. Beyond Woodworth was Captain Kern who had moved up from the Fort to establish a relay camp. Beyond Kern was Johnson’s ranch and beyond Johnson’s was Sutter’s where Sutter, Sinclair and McKinstry were forwarding supplies. Finally, beyond Sutter’s was Yerba Buena where Alcalde Bartlett and Governor Hull were backing up the relief work with money and necessaries. There was something heart-moving in the way that California, war-harried and thinly peopled, had rallied to the cause of humanity. It was as if a strong chain were extending itself link by link across the mountains, finally to reach the camps and draw out the sufferers. The seven had merely gone ahead in the strength of their own stout bodies and stouter hearts, but the next relief would have the organized strength of many men behind it. . . .

I often arrived at the warehouse in the mornings with a mixture of relief that I still had a job and disappointment that the place had not been somehow swept away during the night, or hoping that the managers, knowing that their time was up, had deserted their posts like guards leaving a camp, so at last we could roam the aisles and offices freely without fear of reprimand until an executive somewhere remembered to phone a temp and order her to press a button and delete us all.

The sexual abuse and trafficking of North Korean women and girls is a serious and growing issue in China. Hundreds of North Korean women defect every year, seeking relief from famine and repression, and hopeful for a better life. Go-betweens often promise them a job in a restaurant or factory—then sell them to brokers who force them into marriage, prostitution, or cybersex work. To make matters worse, the Chinese government regards these victims as illegal immigrants rather than refugees. If they go to the authorities, they are simply repatriated back to North Korea, where they will likely serve time in prison camps under horrific conditions.

. . . Or maybe because of the seizures he’d had since he was a kit. He knew his parents still worried about him, even though it had been a while since his last upsetting vision. They’re probably hoping that with some training from the other medicine cats, I’ll learn to control my visions once and for all . . . and I can be normal. Shadowpaw wanted that, too. “The snow must be really deep up on the moors,” Dovewing mewed. “Make sure you watch where you’re putting your paws.” Shadowpaw wriggled his shoulders, praying that none of his Clanmates were listening. “I will,” he promised, glancing toward the medicine cats’ den in the hope of seeing his mentor, Puddleshine, emerge. But there was no sign of him yet. To his relief, Tiger star gave Dovewing a nudge and they both moved off toward the Clan leader’s den. Shadowpaw rubbed one paw hastily across his face and bounded across the camp to see what was keeping Puddleshine. Intent on finding his mentor, Shadowpaw barely noticed the patrol trekking toward the fresh-kill pile, prey dangling from their jaws. He skidded to a halt just in time to avoid colliding with Cloverfoot, the Clan deputy. “Shadowpaw!” she exclaimed around the shrew she was carrying. “You nearly knocked me off my paws.” “Sorry, Cloverfoot,” Shadowpaw meowed, dipping his head respectfully. Cloverfoot let out a snort, half annoyed, half amused. “Apprentices!” Shadowpaw tried to hide his irritation. He was an apprentice, yes, but an old one—medicine cat apprentices’ training lasted longer than warriors’. His littermates were full warriors already. But he knew his parents would want him to respect the deputy. Cloverfoot padded on, followed by Strikestone, Yarrowleaf, and Blazefire. Though they were all carrying prey, they had only one or two pieces each, and what little they had managed to catch was undersized and scrawny. “I can’t remember a leaf-bare as cold as this,” Yarrowleaf complained as she dropped a blackbird on the fresh-kill pile. Strikestone nodded, shivering as he fluffed out his brown tabby pelt. “No wonder there’s no prey. They’re all hiding down their holes, and I can’t blame them.” As Shadowpaw moved on, out of earshot, he couldn’t help noticing how pitifully small the fresh-kill pile was, and he tried to ignore his own growling belly. He could hardly remember his first leaf-bare, when he’d been a tiny kit, so he didn’t know if the older cats were right and the weather was unusually cold. I only know I don’t like it, he grumbled to himself as he picked his way through the icy slush that covered the ground of the camp. My paws are so cold I think they’ll drop off. I can’t wait for newleaf!

Life in a refugee camp is hellish, unbearable. The relief worker who ends the first day wet-eyed can’t always blame the choking dust. But compared with life in Cambodia since 1975, many refugees say their plight doesn’t seem so bad. Talk to them. As they tell of years of horror and misery that Westerners can barely comprehend, their faces are expressionless and dull. Their voices go flat, as if they’re talking about a dull day at work. Their tales end with a nodding acknowledgment of the death of their nation and culture. I

Al-Shabaab seemed right about many things. The newsletter said that international aid was brought to ruin Somali agriculture and to make people dependent on foreign food; both had indeed been side effects of the relief effort. They said that the West wanted Somalis to be held in ‘camps, like animals’, which could be an accurate description of Dadaab. Most of all though, it was the rhetorical question posed in the newsletter that had the biggest impact among Guled’s traumatized generation: ‘Why invade a country that has been fighting a civil war for a decade and a half the moment they have decided to live in peace?’ The Islamic Courts Union had brought peace. It had been wildly popular and Somalis resented the US-sponsored Ethiopian invasion. ‘The United States cannot abide a situation in which Islam is the solution,’ the newsletter argued. And to many that seemed like the truth. The

There were between eight and nine million survivors of the war to settle into Displaced Persons (DP) camps run by the army, or by voluntary agencies such as the Quaker Relief Team, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the Red Cross and the International Refugee Organisation

Such cases were neither unusual nor accidental. According to an estimate by Monsignor Edward Swanstrom, who spearheaded the U.S. National Catholic Welfare Conference’s relief effort in Europe after the war, between 160,000 and 180,000 of the children who became separated from their parents in the course of the transfer operation had not been reunited with them by 1950.2 Many of these separations, as he pointed out, were the inevitable consequences of “snap” expulsions, as exemplified by the story of “a young boy who had walked to a nearby town to go to the store, and before he returned his whole family was forcibly loaded on to a truck and taken to a detention camp for expulsion.

As the IDPs poured into KP, other provinces were already shutting their borders to them. These proud tribals had sacrificed their homes for the peace and prosperity of the nation, and no one wanted to help rehouse them. At the start of the operation, no one had even arranged drinking water for these displaced people. I tweeted about it and Nestle immediately responded by delivering thirty-eight tons of water to the main relief camp in Bannu Sports Complex, which they would then continue to do every week. But hardly anyone else was doing anything. No one cared.

Molly and Gracie sat silently on the horse, tears streaming down their cheeks as Constable Riggs turned the big bay stallion and led the way back to the depot. A high pitched wail broke out. The cries of agonised mothers and the women, and the deep sobs of grandfathers, uncles and cousins filled the air. Molly and Gracie looked back just once before they disappeared through the river gums. Behind them, those remaining in the camp found strong sharp objects and gashed themselves and inflicted wounds to their heads and bodies as an expression of their sorrow. The two frightened and miserable girls began to cry, silently at first, then uncontrollably; their grief made worse by the lamentations of their loved ones and the visions of them sitting on the ground in their camp letting their tears mix with the red blood that flowed from the cuts on their heads. This reaction to their children's abduction showed that the family were now in mourning. They were grieving for their abducted children and their relief would come only when the tears ceased to fall, and that will be a long time yet.

CHAPTER 13 The squall was soon over. Firestar led his cats home through a forest where every twig and fern dripped water under a clearing sky. Silverpelt glittered brightly, and Firestar raised his eyes to utter a silent prayer: Great StarClan, show me what to do. He began to worry about whether Tigerstar had sent warriors to attack the camp while Firestar and the others were away. It would be one way to weaken ThunderClan so that Firestar had no choice but to ally his surviving cats with TigerClan. Relief flooded over