148 results where found for «May the Omelette Turn Over»

The Little Fence (La rejita)

Author:
lyrics: collective creation; music: “Jálame la pitita” by Luis Abanto Morales (Peruvian polka)
Testimony by:
Lucía Chirinos
Place & date:
Cárcel de Mujeres Buen Pastor, La Serena, October 1973 - April 1974
Tags:
« Let’s get going, would say “the lizards”, as we called the policemen because they dress all in green. I looked and looked so I wouldn’t forget anything, because I didn’t know how many years I would be locked up for. I was emotional too: one gets frightened. Against the traffic, they turn the wheel. »
[...]
« When they stripped me I had an attack of sobbing with hiccups. “Alright, let her get dressed”, said one of them. But another one arrived and said “no, all the same she should fucking undress. If Allende was a degenerate all these are prostitutes”. When you are arrested, you stop being a person. They kill first, they ask questions later. That’s what you hear from the women who are in the know. The decay wafts over from the barracks. The sickening smell doesn’t go away, despite the enforced disappearance of people. »
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You Hear It Far Away (Se escucha muy lejos)

Author:
Collective creation
Testimony by:
Ignacio Puelma
Place & date:
Campamento de Prisoneros Ritoque, February 1975
Tags:
« The sound of the sea was carried over the cabins of the Ritoque Prison Camp by the wind. It was the daily music given to us as gift by the ocean. Gone were the torture centres, the cruellest torments seemed distant, and that perception helped us to reconstruct ourselves. Ritoque, Puchuncaví, Tres Álamos and other mass prisoner centres were seething places of activity. Despite the shortcomings and the actual fact of being in prison, movement was gushing from everywhere: courses, crafts, sports, debates, chess, theatre, literature, songs… life was throbbing after we’d lived through the worst nightmares. To go back to them was always a possibility, so much so that some of us did have to go back to the DINA's torture centres. »
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Neither Fish nor Fowl (Ni chicha ni limoná)

Author:
Víctor Jara
Testimony by:
Joaquín Vallejos
Place & date:
Academia de Guerra Naval, January 1974
Tags:
« I was arrested at home together with a childhood friend who they’d gone to pick up first. My family thought he’d stitched me up, which was not true. My friend had nothing to do with politics; he just wanted peace and freedom. He was a hippie and very committed to helping those in need. The two of us were held in the Silva Palma barracks, but the interrogations and torture sessions were at the Naval War Academy in Valparaíso. »
[...]
« To me, that song sung by many female comrades from the Uni, by housewives and female workers, epitomises Chilean women: strong, feisty, committed, rebellious, but also coquettish, feminine and affectionate. I realised over time that it was a way to provoke the guards, who sometimes seemed to suffer same as the prisoners, even though they did nothing about it. »
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Morning Has Broken

Author:
Cat Stevens, based on a traditional Gaelic hymn; lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Place & date:
Campamento de Prisioneros, Estadio Nacional, September - November 1973
Tags:
« At the time of the coup in 1973, this song was world-famous and frequently played on the radio. As transistor radios were quite small, many people were arrested with one of these in their pockets, and a significant number were not searched and confiscated by the military. This explains why, when we were in the National Stadium, we were able to listen to them, keep track of the news and listen to music. »
[...]
« I was particularly fond of this song and I still am. While I was a political prisoner in the Stadium, I was able to listen to it on more than one occasion on radios people lent me. I must say it brought me brief moments of peace and pleasure among all the horror, at a time when torture and murder were a daily occurrence. This and other songs became little oases of sanity in the midst of the criminal madness that ruled over us. »
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Beloved Friend (Amado amigo)

Author:
Sergio Vesely
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
Place & date:
Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, 1975
Tags:
« This song, written in my cell at the Puchuncaví Prison Camp, speaks to a friend and fellow prisoner; it could be any one of the thousands behind bars. »
[...]
« Aimless strolls (caminatas sin destino): Nothing was more characteristic of life in the detention camps and jails than people who strolled alone or with another person in the corridors, halls, prison yard or in a cell. No observer could suppress a smirk upon watching the incongruous bustle to nowhere, changing direction upon nearing a wall or a barbed wire fence. This ritual encouraged interpersonal relationships. We didn't go to the movies with a friend. Instead we would take an aimless stroll to nowhere, which was also the safest “place” for sharing information and to unleash the imagination without the risk of being overheard by some snoop. »
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The Brief Space Where You Are Absent (El breve espacio en que no estás)

Author:
Pablo Milanés
Testimony by:
Vilma Rojas Toledo
Place & date:
Cárcel de Coronel, 1986 - 1988
Tags:
« I recall that during my time as a political prisoner Pablo Milanés was one of our greatest companions. His songs filled us with life, helped us to keep breathing and living behind the bars imposed by Pinochet’s military dictatorship. Personally, I remember the song “El breve espacio en que no estás” (“The brief space where you are absent”) because it sparked such heated debate among my comrades that you would think we were trying to resolve a vital political issue. »
[...]
« One specific phrase set off the controversy: “la prefiero compartida antes que vaciar mi vida” (“I prefer to share her rather than empty out my life”). So we transcribed the song. That was difficult because we listened to the song on a small cassette. Then we analyzed its words, phrase by phrase over a couple of days. We listened to it over and over again. »
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Free (Libre)

Author:
Nino Bravo
Testimony by:
Paicavi Painemal
Place & date:
Comisaría de Carabineros N° 2, Temuco, 22 April 1985
Tags:
« I’m from Chol Chol, part of the Coihue community. I was arrested along with twelve other people and they took us to the Second Police Station of Temuco. I was 30 years old. It was a week before I was due to get married. »
[...]
« Before getting to the prison of Temuco, they took me in a car to a place that appears to have been the Puente Viejo (Old Bridge) over the river Cautín. I could hear the train passing and the noise of the water. »
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National Anthem of Chile

Author:
Eusebio Lillo and Ramón Carnicer
Testimony by:
anónimo
Place & date:
Cárcel de Valdivia / Cárcel de Isla Teja, September 1973
Tags:
« I was detained in Panguipulli on 24 September 1973, along with 17 other young people. I was a high school student. I was also working at the forestry and logging company of Huilo Huilo, which had been taken over by the working class. We were tortured for two or three days at the police station of Panguipulli. They left me unconscious. »
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Let’s Break the Morning (Rompamos la mañana)

Author:
René “Popeye” Cárdenas Eugenin
Testimony by:
María Soledad Ruiz Ovando
Place & date:
Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973 - 1974
Tags:
« Music was very important for us (my mother Sylvia Ovando, my sister Alejandra Ruiz and myself) while my dad, Daniel Ruiz Oyarzo, 'el Negro Ruiz', was imprisoned during the dictatorship, when Alejandra was seven and I was four. »
[...]
« The experience was very beautiful not only because it involved such a meaningful song, but also because of what we were expressing by keeping it in our memories for so many years, and moreover, that we had taught the song to Wladislaw Pavel, Daniel’s grandson. »
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You Can Blame Me (Échame a mí la culpa)

Author:
José Ángel Espinoza, aka Ferrusquillo
Testimony by:
Marcia Scantlebury
Place & date:
Campamento de Prisioneros Cuatro Álamos, June 1975
Tags:
« Mexican songs - and this one in particular - have always moved me. When I shared a cell with Miriam Silva, a young woman who belonged to the Communist Youth, arrested by the DINA when she was handing out leaflets on the street, we killed time in an organised fashion to keep ourselves from getting depressed and overcome by anxiety due to an unknown fate. »
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