A Refugee Camp in Bangladesh, 1977
For Bangladesh, which was once called East Pakistan, 2021 marks the 50th Anniversary of its brutal War of Independence from West Pakistan, a tragedy that occurred just a year after the would-be country was also stunned by a tropical cyclone and storm surge, perhaps the deadliest natural disasters in history. Between these calamities at least a million people were killed and an unknown number of women raped, starting with the well-educated, business people and middle class. By Independence Day, the country was on its knees.
Gordon and Meredith witnessed this themselves six years later in 1977, when they spent three months helping a non-profit relief agency to the residents of Mirpur Destitute Camp, the dismal home for 400+ men, women and children still left homeless by the disasters. Six days a week they worked side by side with them, learned to speak a little Bengali and had time to hear some of their often-tragic stories.
One of these people was Amina Khatum, the widower of a middle class merchant who lived in a home with cooks and servants. After his death in the war she was cast onto the streets and finally able to live with her daughter and grandson inside a bombed out soap factory, her family’s small territory staked by burlap walls, her neighbors but a meter or two either side. By day she toiled at menial tasks like scavenging or hammering rocks into gravel for just enough rice to help feed her offspring. But amidst all of that despair, she still had her family, a community around her and a rare chance to hope and smile.
The Bengali Grandmother is part of the Portraits Set of Mini-Prints.
Amina Khatum, once a middle class woman with servants, was widowed and cast onto the street by the country's brutal War of Independence in 1971. Although still living in a refugee camp six years later, family and friends still gave her reasons to smile. - Handmade Mini-Print, featuring photography by Gordon Wiltsie, matted and mounted including frame.
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Uyghur elders chat outsidea mosque in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China. - Handmade Mini-Print, including matte, mount and frame, featuring photography by Gordon Wiltsie.