Unconscionable Human Skeleton Museum Displays

Ilvy Njiokiktjien, New York Times

 

"What the museums have in common is that they all see it as a problem -- and that's already progress."

"They all deal with it in different ways, although there are many similarities."

"Some are more proactive than others."

Jos van Beurden, repatriation expert, researcher, Free University of Amsterdam

 

"It makes me sad. The Dutch destroyed everything of ours, our language, our culture."

"First they forbid it, and we all had to become Christians and learn the Dutch language, and then they displayed and traded our ancestors' skulls." 

Menucha Latumaerissa, 45 Dutch customs official, ethnic Moluccan

 

"What it should emphasize is the idea that, in an ideal situation, collections like these -- racialized collections -- should reach their final resting place, with their communities."

"The empty stands show this important absence so we don't forget these things happened."

"We do feel a sense of shame, but also responsibility. What does it mean to have these remains housed here?"

"We need to find a way to somehow address these collections."

Laurens de Rooy, director, Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam University Medical Center 

The Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among its collection are unusual or deformed organs, an iron lung and Einstein’s brain. Photograph: Allentown Morning Call/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

 

 A book, published in 1917, discovered in a thrift shop, motivated Menucha Latumaerissa to begin looking into history reflecting the Moluccan people. The book that so fascinated him to begin his career of searching out museums' artefacts dating from Europe's colonialist days when indigenous peoples' skeletons were taken from their places of origin to become curiosities placed in cabinets and displayed for public view, essentially treating the remains of people considered inferior to Europeans as commodities of curiosity, available for gawking at local museums. Descriptions of studies of human skulls from the Indonesian archipelago taken to the Netherlands during the colonial period, demonstrated the fascination of 'race science' by researchers.

 

As a Dutch customs officer, Mr. Latumaerissa developed a hobby of tracking Moluccan islands specimens taken to Europe, feeding off his own ethnic origins as one of Moluccan birth. A small diaspora from the Mollucan islands arrived in the Netherlands in 1951 following the Indonesian war of independence. On arrival in the Netherlands they were forced into internment camps and minority districts leaving him to contemplate: might those skulls still be on display somewhere in the Netherlands?

 

Ramses I Mummy. The mummy of Ramses I was looted from Egypt around 1860 and held in various private collections in Canada and the US up until 2003. The mummy is currently on display in the Luxor Museum.  Wikicommons

 

 He eventually found them in a tiny anatomical museum, part of the Amsterdam University Medical Center called the Museum Vrolik, dating to the 19th century where jars of body parts were on display. Aside from the feet and ears and irregular fetuses, there were cabinets full of skulls and bones. The Moluccan skulls lined up in the museum have now been returned to the archipelago which gave birth to them, while the empty shelves in the display cabinets and their empty stands are testimony to the uncaring attitudes of scientists and colonists who viewed the Indigenous peoples they dominated as less than human.

 

Today, the Museum Vrolik is featuring a new exhibition which it has titled "Imagine: The Future of Human Remains from Colonial Contexts", scheduled to be on display until June of 2027. The point of the display, according to the museum's director, is to provide food for thought in calling attention to the human treasure troves, taken in a spirit of conquest and contempt, now finding their place back at their beginnings, granting dignity to that which was once a living human being. Needless to say, it is not only the Netherlands alone that indulged in these colonialist-era curiosity cabinets, but a Europe-wide practise.

 

The Hyrtl Skull Collection on display at the museum. Photograph: Allentown Morning Call/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

 

 Thousands of colonial-era human remains; skulls, skeletons, mummies, hair and teeth, were preserved and labelled in European collections; many representing anatomical troves used for scientific research at medical institutions; others on display in natural history museums. Most of these human artefacts were procured from hospitals, hauled out of pauper's graves, or procured through commercial trade in skeletons, while a smaller number were gathered through archaelogical looting or as trophies from  colonized geographies in Africa, Asia and Oceania.

 

The European penchant for these public displays dates from the 17th century when anatomists developed preservation methods, placing specimens in jars as educational tools as well as for the purpose of giving the public an opportunity to view spectacular specimens of the human skeletal architecture. "Race science" motivated scientists and anthropologists to collect  human bones with a focus on specimens from Indigenous and local populations from colonies, taken to Europe where hierarchies were invented to justify colonial subjugation, discrimination and slavery.  

 

The museum of Ole Worm, Copenhagen: interior. Engraving, 1655.   JStor

 

The "Negative Consequence of Colonization" ... All Is Forgiven

"[While the man] was not raised with a traditional upbringing, [doesn't have status and neither he nor his] immediate family were impacted by state actions such as residential schools, even the dissociation with one's past and cultural heritage is a negative consequence of colonization." 

"[Yet] violence against the toddler, when he was so young, will have an inevitable and long-term impact. The extent of the impact is unknown, but I have no trouble finding that there will have been an impact."

"He helped to care for the children when the mother was unavailable or even, as it appears from time to time, unwilling. [On occasion, however], the child would be locked in a bedroom as a punishment for their behaviour and at night [so he wouldn't interrupt them]." 

"[K.J.M.] did not express any concern with locking a toddler in a room for extended periods of time while unsupervised by an adult." 

B.C. Provincial Court Judge Temara Golinsky 

The building blocks of character

 

In British Columbia an Indigenous man of 33, has been sentenced to six months in prison for assaults captured by a nanny cam in the bedroom of a two-year-old child. A year behind bars was sought by the Crown, while a conditional sentence of two years less a day to be served in the community was what the defence counsel felt to be a more appropriate sentence. Although the man had never lived in an Indigenous community, nor was he raised with a First Nations consciousness, the man referred to in court as K.J.M. was still given weight as an impediment to his equal status within society, without having suffered discrimination as a result of his indigeneity. 

 

K.J.M. pleaded guilty to the two assaults for which he was charged in court, expressing remorse at a two-day sentencing hearing. K.L.M. spoke during a pre-sentence interview of his relationship with the mother of the two children with whom he lived as 'awful', based on what he believed to be her infidelity. He felt used by the children's mother -- for financial support and child care. The child, he said, 'was difficult to parent', would beat his four-year-old sister and 'smear his s--- on the wall' without chastising guidance from the child's mother.

 

K.J.M. explained he put the toddler in a time out in his mother's absence on the day of the event that occasioned the first of the charges against him. The video in the child's room showed the child, clad in a diaper only, seated on the floor close to the bedroom door. When the door was opened it struck him on the shoulder "rolling him back and away from the door". 

 

"K.J.M. stepped into the room and used his foot to kick and move the child away from the door, rolling him into the centre of the room. He then bent down and pushed his hand on the front of the child's neck, pressing him into the carpet. He squeezed the child's neck for a moment while the child was screaming."

"K.J.M. yelled, 'Get away from the f---ing door', and then released his grip and left the room, closing the door behind him."

"The child can be heard crying while crawling back to sit at the closed door."

 

Two days later, another video showed the second of the charged assaults. The little boy, again diaper-clad, on his bed quietly crying, flinches as K.J.M. opens the door and strides into the room to stand beside the bed.

 

"He immediately squared his stance and then kicked the child once in the face or forehead with his bare foot, causing the child to fall onto his back."

"He yelled something at the child, then stormed out of the room and closed the door behind him. The child continued to lie there on his back and can be heard crying until the video ends a few seconds later."

 

Some time afterward, the children's mother noticed a scrape on her son which motivated her to review the footage on the nanny cam, which revealed the assaults. She immediately alerted authorities. While acknowledging his unacceptable behaviour with the child, K.J.M. spoke to the pre-sentence interviewers of the child having been "screaming or freaking out" after being punished. Judge Golinsky corrected that version, when she said audio from the videos indicate the toddler "was doing neither in the seconds leading up to either of the assaults".

 

 

The judge considered the man's offences to be "of such gravity and his moral culpability" so high that a conditional sentence was inappropriate. In consideration of the violent nature of the assaults given the child's vulnerability, the judge noted that the "assaults cannot be characterized as momentary lapses of judgment. If he had known the first assault was a mistake, as he stated to the report writers, then it is aggravating that he assaulted the toddler again."

 

Even so, taking into account K.J.M.'s indigenous ancestry as well as other mitigating factors, she felt in her judgment, a shorter sentence than requested by the Crown was supported, considering his guilty plea, the absence of any prior criminal record, his remorse -- and long-term effects of a traumatic brain injury suffered from an ATV accident in 2013. 

 

A 33-year-old B.C. man of Indigenous descent was sentenced to six months in prison for choking and kicking his ex-girlfriend's toddler son. Photo by Postmedia

 

Virulent Antisemitism Brought Up Short

"[The superintendent recently reprimanded Alizadeh-Gharib and ordered him to] register for and successfully complete the custom educational course, including four immersive workshops and all assignments, as provided by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies."

"[If Alizadeh-Gharib] fails to comply with any of the terms of this order, the superintendent may suspend or cancel [his real estate licence without further notice]." 

B.C. Financial Services Authority

The B.C. Financial Services Authority has sanctioned a Vancouver real estate agent and ordered him to complete mandatory education after he sent a hateful message to a Jewish Toronto restaurant. Real Estate Magazine

 

The British Columbia financial services regulator penalized a real estate agent in British Columbia who sent a message to a Jewish-owned restaurant in Toronto that read: "F--K UR JEW ASS RESTAURANT, LAND STEALING C--ts, TURN YOUR OVENS ON N GO HOME! WISH (GERMANY) FINISHED ALL OF YOU PARASITES", accompanied by a picture of Hitler. The "antisemitic, violent and hateful" message was sent by Nima Alizadeh-Gharib while licensed with a numbered B.C. company in a business arrangement with Coldwell Banker Prestige Reality.

 

To the disciplinary measure imposed upon him, AlizadethGharib signed a consent order used by the regulator to resolve disciplinary matters. Alizadeh-Gharib, according to the order, was made responsible for paying for the course's $3,000 cost. Enforcement expenses must also be paid by him to the B.C. Financial Services Authority within two months in the amount of $2,350, according to the signed consent order. 

 

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

 

The regulator was made aware of the real estate agent's messaging of a seemingly random Jewish business when Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre lodged a formal complaint last year with the regulator.

"Promoting hatred and advocating genocide are criminal matters. Alizadeh's hateful conduct is also beyond the pale for any professional, let alone a licensed real estate agent, who is entrusted by the B.C. Financial Services Authority to uphold ethical standards and serve the public with respect, fairness, and integrity."

"[The message represented] a vile attack on the Jewish community but also a direct violation of the ethical obligations required of real estate professionals in British Columbia."

"This is a totally random Jewish family. They have no public politics to speak of. Unfortunately, there are people out there that think that they can direct any amount of hate at random Jewish citizens with complete impunity."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy, Wiesenthal Centre  

A licensed real estate agent in the province since 2011, Alizadeh-Gharib sent his message from his personal Instagram account in December of 2024. The investigators were informed by Alizadeh-Gharib that he "had consumed a significant amount of alcohol and was intoxicated" when the message was sent. He "had viewed a social media post alleging that the restaurant w as financially supporting the Israeli Defense Forces with their operations in Gaza", the order clarified. Alizadeh waived his right to an appeal.

 

At the time that the Wiesenthal Centre had reported the incident, the organization also filed a report with respect to Alizadeh-Gharib' actions with the RCMP. The RCMP advised Alizadeh-Gharib "that any further contact with the restaurant owners would result in criminal charges".  

"On January 6, 2025, N. Alizadeh-Gharib delivered a written apology to the restaurant. In his apology letter, he stated ... 'I take full responsibility for my behaviour and the harm it caused to everyone affected. I am committed to taking immediate and meaningful steps to educate myself, grow and ensure nothing like this ever happens again."

"[Alizadeh-Gharib] has made a donation of $1,000 to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre as a gesture of goodwill, intended to represent a meaningful act of reparation that contributes to an organization devoted to promoting the values that were undermined by his singular action."

Consent Order,  B.C. Financial Services Authority 

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

 

In Their Wisdom...

"[On March 14, 2016], Ali entered the Canadian forces Recruiting Centre in Toronto and immediately attacked the corporal who was seated at the entrance. Mr. Ali repeatedly punched the corporal in the head, and then took a large kitchen knife from a folder he was carrying and lunged at the corporal, slashing and stabbing at him with the knife, causing a three-inch gash to the corporal's arm."

"[A petty officer armed with a chair forced Ali away from the corporal. Ali then began chasing a sergeant] swinging his knife at her on more than one occasion, barely missing the back of her neck."

"[He] encountered another sergeant who had slipped and fallen in the chaos. Mr. Ali was observed to slash and stab the sergeant several times in the upper torso and head while he was on the ground. [Numerous military personnel eventually pinned him to the ground and got control of his knife]." 

Background addressed to a tribunal at the Ontario Review Board

Toronto police say a man walked into the federal building Monday and stabbed two members of the Canadian Armed Forces. (Natalie Kalata/CBC)

 

"Ali continued to pose a significant threat to the safety of the public and that the necessary and appropriate disposition was a continuation of the existing conditional discharge save and except for the addition of a discretionary travel pass for up to three weeks on an itinerary approved by the [person in charge] to allow for travel to Saudi Arabia and/or Somalia, accompanied by an approved person."

Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto  

Born in Montreal, the now-38-year-old grew up in Toronto. Despite having attended the University of Toronto and University of Calgary, he came away from his academic experiences without a degree. The Ontario Review Board heard in a deposition from Ali's family that he had been symptomatic for a while before the attack at the recruiting centre. He was found not criminally responsible for the attack on the three counts of attempted murder at the Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre.

 

Ayanle Hassan Ali, 27, a Montreal-born suspect charged in a double stabbing at a Canadian Armed Forces recruiting centre in north Toronto, appeared in a Toronto court. (Pam Davies/CBC)

 

Ayanle Hassan Ali, of Somalian heritage, Muslim, had appealed to the board to allow him to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca with his father. The ultimate goal of the hajj for this man evidently is to meet a potential bride his father arranged for him in Somalia. According to Ali's doctor, his patient's "faith and religious beliefs continue to be very important to him, and he attends mosque weekly, and he prays five times daily" (likely the inspirational source of his jihadi violence) in the words of the independent tribunal that reviews the status of individuals found not criminally responsible as a result of mental disorder.

 

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, like his mother, his terrorist actions in March of 2016 found him not criminally responsible, citing his mental disorder that led to the three attempted murder attempts for which he was charged, along with two counts of assault with a weapon, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. 

Ayanle Hassan Ali, shown in a police handout photo, was ordered to remain in custody following a court appearance - Toronto Police Service handout

 

"According to the hospital report, it appeared that as a teenager, he experienced obsessions and compulsions and had difficulty concentrating in school. He began to hear voices, had ideas of reference, and was consistently concerned about the government watching him. He no longer spent time with friends, did not leave the house, and spent long periods of time alone in his room staring at the wall. He threw out almost everything from his room including his mattress and spent hours copying books." 

Detained at St. Joseph's Health Care Hamilton from 2018 to 2023 as a result of the diagnosis of 'not criminally responsible', he was found to be compliant with his medications, and was described as a 'model patient'. Ali was ordered by the Ontario Review Board to be transferred in March 2023 to Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He was later discharged into the community to live with his father. "At that time, he was treated with a long-acting injectable of antipsychotic medication." More recently, in 2025 he moved again, to live with his mother and one of his sisters.

 

"Mr. Ali has advised that this [a parent arranging for a marriage partner from abroad] is not uncommon in his culture, and the marriage would only proceed if both parties were agreeable. He is hopeful he will be able to travel to Somalia over the upcoming reporting year for an introductory meeting with the woman." The Review Board agreed to grant Ayanle Hassan Ali's request to travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, giving him a three-week travel pass, their decision bypassing the reality that he "continues to pose a significant threat to public safety".

 

Ayanle Hassan Ali arrives in a police car at a Toronto court house on Tuesday, March 15, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

 

"The final risk judgement is of a low risk of violence under the continuation of a conditional discharge." "Risk would rise to moderate to high if he were granted an absolute discharge, given uncertainty with change to oral medication and the final steps to occupational and social reintegration hurdles which are of great importance to him."

"Although frequency of violent behavior is likely low, re-emergence of psychotic symptoms could result in an increasing risk of serious violence."

Hospital Patient Report 

Opioid Chemical Compound Papers Online Fuelling Drug Trade

"It is ten times more potent than fentanyl. We are just seeing this for the first time [on the streets]." 

"The reality is, yes, there's always a possibility [that scientists publishing their findings for easy accessibility for other scientists, enabled a trend]."

"Nobody knows what's really coming next. So you can make the argument that having that information is more beneficial to us than not having the information."

Alex J. Krotulski, forensic toxicologist Center for Forensic Science Research & Education, Pennsylvania laboratory

 

"If I can access the literature [then] they [amateur chemists and illicit drug suppliers anywhere in the world] can access the literature."

"[The challenge, was to be] not one step behind but one step ahead." 

Istvan Ujvary, Hungarian medicinal and pharmaceutical chemist 

Alex J. Krotulski runs a lab tasked with identifying a growing assortment of new synthetic drugs.

 

Illegal drugs today are produced in unregulated laboratories around the world, from Chinese and Indian enterprises to single-individual operations operated out of apartments. Fentanyl is just one of hundreds of synthetic compounds, growing steadily more potent, that are known as novel psychoactive substances. There are now 1,446 new psychoactive substances listed by the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime, whereas a decade earlier there were 643. 

 

Any combination of chemicals or molecular structure published online becomes immediately available to those lurking in the wings waiting to see what has more recently been synthesized in a reputable scientific laboratory as a strictly scientific endeavour, perhaps for the purpose of finding new chemical combinations that might be useful for medical prescriptions addressing the kind of pain suffered by individuals who fail to respond to existing treatment protocols. 

 

According to Dr. Laura Bohn, associate dean of research at Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, the internet has become the 'cookbook' for the drug trade. She is herself engaged in the study and development of new opiate molecules in medical research, and  her work like all others, published in online medical journals, is open to scrutiny for anyone within the scientific community, but also to those whose keen interest in new opiate potentials has a malevolent purpose.

 

Kettering Health

 

That purpose is to synthesize new combinations of chemicals, derived from shadowing legitimate research to appropriate findings deemed useful to be mixed, substituted and adulterated on a continuous search for new street drugs to fuel the profits of drug cartels as well as individual illicit drug entrepreneurs. Some 42 percent of samples that contain fentanyl include five or more psychoactive compounds, an increase from the 23 percent found three years ago, through a recent study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

 

Compounds can be identified by having samples of finished products run through a high-resolution mass spectrometer to finely measure the molecular weights of compounds, which are then compared against a database of 1,200 known drug molecules. N-desethyl etonitazene is among them, from a family of synthetic opiates named nitazenes. Dr. Alex J. Krotulski became aware of this chemical group in 2019 when he and other scientists in forensic toxicology heard of a fatality in Alberta.

 

Kettering Health

The Alberta fatality was caused by a nitazene variant, isotonitazene. Not long after, that very drug was implicated in deaths in Minnesota, Iowa and a few other states. These nitazene opiates were developed 70 years ago by a Swiss pharmaceutical company in the hope that scientists working there had discovered a new drug for pain. The drugs were found in fact, to dangerously suppress breathing and the old patents were shelved. 

 

Their resurgence, it was hypothesized, related to the U.S. and China outlawing fentanyl, forcing illicit drugmakers to look elsewhere for a replacement. Istvan Ujvary is considered to be an influential prophetic scientist, capable of modelling the future of drug compounds appearing suddenly and recognizable by new deaths from street drugs. Tasked by the EU's Drug Agency for a paper to explore which nitazene substances might make a dangerous new appearance, his research was ultimately published in two journals, even while he was congnizant of the risk of street chemists making use of the research. 

 

One of the papers written in tandem with other scholars, examined existing nitazene compounds modelled by hypothetical new compounds, exploring their interaction with the brain's opioid receptor. Some of the drugs the papers mentioned soon after began to appear on the street. One of them was N-desethyl etonitazene, found to have contributed to new deaths of unsuspecting drug users.  

Kettering Health

Nitazenes: The Emergence of a Potent Synthetic Opioid Threat The global unregulated drug supply faces a critical challenge with the emergence of nitazenes, a class of novel synthetic opioids (NSOs) structurally distinct from fentanyl and associated with extreme potency and high risk of fatal overdose. First synthesised in the late 1950s, etonitazene was a target of preclinical research in rats and rhesus monkeys, but it never reached clinical trials due to an unfavourable balance between therapeutic and toxic effects. Nitazenes’ consistent reappearance began in 2019 with isotonitazene, followed by a rapid proliferation of analogues worldwide, many reported to be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than morphine and, in some cases, stronger than fentanyl. This rise is fuelled by their ease of synthesis, low production costs, and evasion of regulatory controls. Nitazenes are frequently mis-sold as counterfeit medications or adulterated into other drugs, resulting in unintentional exposure and overdose, particularly among opioid-naïve users. The primary cause of death is severe and prolonged respiratory depression. Analytical challenges are significant, as traditional screening methods are ineffective, and the low concentration in biological samples requires expensive and highly sensitive liquid chromatography mass spectrometry techniques. This perspective paper highlights critical gaps in detection, clinical management, and regulatory readiness for nitazenes. Urgent efforts are needed to improve surveillance, develop robust analytical methodologies, provide clinical guidance to nitazene intoxications, and strengthen international policy to curb their proliferation.

MDPI  Advancing Open Science 

The Paris Catacombs

Descend beneath the streets of Paris to discover one of the city's most unique attractions. The final resting place of six million Parisians, the catacombs are not for the faint of heart!   Paris Perfect

 

"The goal isn't to turn it into Disneyland."

"[The setting was never meant to be sensationalist], it was meant to emphasize solemnity and create an atmosphere of respect."

"The first priority is, above all, to preserve the site and maintain a balance between the visit and the conservation of the remains." 

Isabelle Knafou, administrator, Paris Catacombs 

Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images  

 

First excavated during the Roman era, the tunnels, converted into 'galleries' that lie as a vast labyrinth beneath Paris, were meant for the purpose of mining. In the 18th century they were converted to a catchbasin, not for aquatic sewage purposes, but to receive the remains of the dead, at a time when Paris cemeteries were overflowing, and sanitation became a serious issue. As a result, city authorities initiated the storage of bones of people who had lived from the 10th to the 18th centuries, into areas of the tunnels, turning those areas into an ossuary.

 

An official whose position was to oversee the quarries, Louis-Etienne Hericart de Thury, in the 1800s thought of turning those areas housing the tomb's bones into a museum. Workers then proceeded to use the bones to construct walls and pillars. Finally the catacombs were officially opened as a 'museum', welcoming its first visitors in 1809. 

 

It has been two centuries during which tourists and locals have made their way below ground to pay a visit to the catacombs where an estimated six million individuals who once lived in Paris are entombed. Floor to ceiling the passageways are lined with bones. The dimly lit tunnels see 600,000 visitors annually. Work has been underway over the past five months where architects, designers, technicians and masons have been busy in the renovation of the passageways. 

 

Ossuaries at the Catacombs of Paris, with a sign describing how the bones depicted above were exhumed from the Cimetière des Innocents Cemetery in 1809. Many others were transferred much earlier. Mustang Joe/CC0 1.0

 

Areas too dimly lit for people to access will now be accessible. Obviously such visits by the curious bespeak for many a macabre fascination with the dead on full display. Curators emphasize that the work  undertaken has a primary purpose of preserving the site, while making it more accessible; appealing to those who wish to view its contents, the work maintaining a spooky, sombre appeal. Humidity and carbon dioxide intensified by visitors have occasioned moulding bones and crumbling walls along with a dilapidated electrical system. Hence the renovations.

 

Of the hundreds of kilometers of labyrinthine tunnelling, a 1.5-kilometer segment reopened recently. According to the lead architect, finding workers willing to work 18 meters underground, constantly ascending and descent long stairways, working in cramped spaces, surrounded by bones, has been a challenge. "At the start of the project, some people said, 'We're leaving'", she reported.

 

Stonemasons, working with buckets of bones have been restoring the walls, wedging bones back into place, in the creation of rows of femurs and tibias, alternating with lines of skulls. Florent Bastaroli, one of the stonemasons commented "it puts us back in our place as mortals".  

 

Abandoned railroad tunnel we entered and walked for 1/2 a mile before entering the catacombs  Venture the Planet

 

 

 

Much Ado About Nothing : Canada's Shakespearean Farce

"I told her: 'I wish our people could grab you, drag you over to the Kamloops residential school, put you into the basement, speak our language to you, rape you, hurt you."

"And maybe you'd understand what our people went through."

Charlene Belleau, elder, Esk'etemc First Nation, British Columbia 

 

"I don't think they're a threat I think there's a lot of comments about how she should be charged and punished in various ways, and I'm opposed to that, because I think people should e able to speak freely about everything, as long as they don't incite violence or engage in threats."

"I think they're deplorable comments, and it reflects the fact that Aboriginal leaders are pandered to constantly and never challenged, so they become more and more unhinged as time goes on."

Frances Widdowson, academic; Economics and Indigenous Policy 

 

"I'm not sure what the member [MLA Tara Armstrong] is referring to, but I do know what she's tried to do in the past, insisting that the bodies of children who died at residential schools should be dug up."

"Something that you would never insist at any other place in t he world where  holocausts or genocides occurred."

"That's not how we do these things. [She is] trying to further divide us over an issue that is very emotional, troubling and challenging."

B.C. Indigenous Relations Minister Spencer Chandra Herbert

The main administrative building of the former school is pictured in 1970. (Department of Citizenship and Immigration- Information Division / Library and Archives Canada)

 

In 2021 at the former Kamloops Residential School, the chief of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir made a riveting public statement that sent shock waves through the country, a statement picked up by international news media, and which prompted then-PM Justice Trudeau to order Canadian flags at half-mast and held them that way for six months, in honour of the 215 Indigenous children Chief Casimir claimed lay in unmarked graves at the school site. Her band had hired a specialist in ground-penetrating radar, the results of which led her to make these remarks to the media: 

"To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths."

"Some were as young as three years old. We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect and love for those lost children and their families, understanding that Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc is the final resting place of these children."  

That shocking declaration galvanized Canada into a state of mourning, of self-blame, of acceptance of the charges that a 'genocide' took place. Government at every level genuflected in shame and remorse, pledged that this horrible sin against humanity and Indigenous children who attended Indian Residential Schools, who had suffered loneliness and misery, neglect and humiliation, condemned if they spoke their native language, were exposed to life-changing, long-lasting trauma that affected following generations.

 

On the rare occasion, some individuals who had attended these schools denied those charges, countered that their exposure to educational opportunities aided them in their later lives to make a life for themselves outside of aboriginal communities, adjusting to the outside world and finding professional occupations that satisfied their personal aspirations. These voices were swiftly condemned and stilled. Then someone observed there was no proof presented. And eventually Chief Casimir altered her story in line with what she had been informed by the professionals using the ground-penetrating radar, that it identified underground 'anomalies', which could be anything, from dead wood to inanimate buried items -- and just possibly bodies.

A plaque is seen outside of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Andrew Snucins/The Canadian Press)

 

Funding was made available to look deeper into the situation. Including disinterring whatever lay underground identified as anomalies by the ground-penetrating radar.  In the years since the original 'discovery' no attempts were made to investigate any further. The story of unmarked graves continued and persist to this day, most particularly in British Columbia. Professor Widdowson objected to this unquestioned and unproven claim and paid dearly in her professional life, when her colleagues and her university employment isolated her.

 

While Professor Widdowson offered to civilly debate anyone who was interested over the issue, her offer was rejected. During an event called 'My name is Charlene: Perseverance and poise in an era of truth, reconciliation, anger and rage', hosted by the Office of Respectful Environments, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion under the medical faculty of UBC, guest Charlene Belleau recounted a comment she had made to Professor Widdowson at a campus event; in disagreement with the professor's position, she had addressed her saying she would like to see  her beaten and raped.

 

When the B.C. Legislature met last Friday, a question was put to the Indigenous Relations minister to comment on Chief Belleau's statement. Refusing to respond, the minister instead accused the questioning member of attempting to foment confusion and division. Yet the B.C. government in 2021 had allocated $12 million to finance First Nations' investigation into the unmarked grave sites. At that time Chief Belleau said it represented an "important first step in supporting the resiliency and healing of B.C. First Nations people". And then: nothing. 

 

The former Kamloops Indian Residential School is seen on Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, B.C., on May 27, 2021. The remains of 215 children were purported to have been found buried on the site, the First Nation said. (Andrew Snucins/The Canadian Press)

"The UBC [University of British Columbia] faculty of medicine does not condone any speech that endorses or promotes harassment or violence of any kind."

"An invitation for a community member to participate in an event does not constitute endorsement of their specific remarks or views."

Mieke Koehoorn, vice-dean of academic affairs, Faculty of Medicine, UBC