Gilles Peress

The Graves is a sobering book that follows the UN forensics team while they excavated numerous graves around Srebrenica and Vukovar in 1996. We hear first hand testimony from the survivors, and see photos of the grave sites, giving the reader a powerful combination of evidence to the genocide. It also touches on the failure of the UN to stop such events from happening. Between an unwillingness to put UN Peacekeepers in harms way during the war (highlighted by a quote form a survivor that show more “the UN was telling us that our lives were not worth the lives of UN peacekeepers”) to the lack of funding afterwards to investigate (one doctor saying “you have the largest forensics investigation in the world, and it is being done on a shoestring budget”). You will be outraged by the narrative, but you will be shaken by the photos. Hearing about the grave sites is no comparison to seeing the bodies. This is a difficult book to get through, but one you must read. There is a quote in The Graves from Justice Richard Goldstone, the Chief Prosecutor of the UN War Crimes Tribunal. In discussing the prosecutions in Bosnia and Rwanda he says “Specific individuals bear the major share of the responsibility, and it is they, not the group as a whole, who need to be held to account.” While I certainly understand the view point that we can not paint all Serbs or all Hutus as being culpable to genocide, we also can not absolve the killers for what they did simply because someone else stoked the hatred. Blame for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia can certainly be placed with specific individuals who organized it. You can also trace events decades back in both places to try and understand the root causes. But for each death, there is an individual who pulled the trigger or swung the machete. Ratko Mladic or Radovan Karadzic organized and implemented the genocide in Bosnia, but ordinary Serbs and Bosnian Serbs saw that plan through. We must heal the underlying wounds that were allowed to fester into genocide, or else we will continue to see this cycle again and again.
There is another quote from Louise Arbour in The Graves that gets to the root of the matter, “Crimes are committed by people. They are not committed by abstract entities like nationalities.” But if we see the people who executed the genocide as clay molded by a few leaders, then we are doomed to have more books like The Graves and more graves to excavate. show less

The Rockaways by Gilles Peress is a collection of essays and many photos of the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy on October 25, 2012 on the Rockaways. The Rockaways is a peninsula that goes from the New York Harbor to the south shore of Long Island. The large and mostly dark photos need no description. They speak poignantly of the destruction. There is one that really draws me in of a woman sitting in chair outside with her little white dog on a lease. She is looking at the dog in a way show more that seems to say, “Thank goodness I didn’t lose her”. In another a couple stand across the street across from a business that has been completely smashed. There is nothing useable left. The man’s head is bent down in despair and the ponytailed woman is embracing and trying to comfort him. Another one is of some temporary voting booths set up so the residents can votes. This is outdoors, under a tent in the cold.

There are memories from the residents and their feelings, their memories before, during and after. There are concerns that in a few weeks what happened here will be forgotten. The donations of help and money will stop.

At the end of this book there is a list of organizations that are working to bring The Rockaways back. This book is free and anyone who reads it is encouraged to support the groups who are helping the Rockaways.

This book is a special record of what happened and a plea to help. show less

First published in 1984, this exceptionally designed book established Gilles Peress' reputation as a photojournalist. The reissue of "Telex Iran" in 1997 shows that these photos only gain impact with Iran's continuing role as a key player in the Middle East.

I was amazed by the photographs that captured the devastation of Hurricane Sandy of the Rockaways . This was a special project from Gilles Peress that was intended to show support from the victims of Sandy. On the back of the book, concord Press that anyone who receives a free copy, you agree to donate to a Hurricane Sandy relief organization, another charity of your choice, or a person in need. I have subsequently made a donation to the American Red Cross and I am a regular giver to show more Goodwill. I really was moved by the book and I intend to pass this along as per the requirements of being a recipient. show less