A forced disappearance occurs when an organisation forces a person to vanish from public view, either by murder or by simple sequestration. The victim is first kidnapped, then illegally detained in concentration camps, often tortured, and finally executed and the corpse hidden. Typically, a murder will be surreptitious, with the body disposed of in such a way as to never be found. The person simply vanishes. The party committing the murder has deniability, as there is no body to show that the victim is actually dead. Furthermore, the perpetrators of disappearance often go to great lengths to obscure or eliminate all mention of the disappeared, by altering the historical record and encouraging the silence of surviving relatives.

¿ Wikipedia: discussion of the concept of "Forced Disappearance".

A couple I once knew were arguing about something or other, when she declared that she would burn up his boat or horse stable, if the situation continued. His response was: "People can burn too."

Of recent decades, we have become accustomed to the concept that people can also be "disappeared", as the result of government actions, not private vendettas.

While "forced disappearance" was a major feature of some dictators in the earlier parts of the last century, it was in the later decades that the phrase los desaparecidos came into currency with the killing of people in Chile and in particular Argentina.

The latter country became know for its "death flights", whereby dissidents were made to disappear by being tossed out of aeroplanes into the deep ocean, never to be seen again. Sometimes, couples were disappeared and their children adopted by the very people who did the removal job. In a very recent case, such a child, now 30 years old, took her foster parents to court and they were convicted of illegal adoption and are now in jail.

The main difference between the "disappeared" and some earlier atrocities lies in the questions of historical record and knowledge. The Nazis, for example, kept meticulous records, and while it was of small comfort, at least families eventually knew where and when the deaths of their relatives occurred and in which concentration camp or other prison.

In the case of the disappeared, there were few, if any, records kept, so the mortal remains and documented knowledge thereof both vanished, the first by total destruction and the second by official neglect in the lack of record keeping. Such "disappearing" is now considered a Crime against Humanity under international law or agreements.

To return to our couple's discussion about things versus people, buildings and the history of such cultural heritage can also be "disappeared", through deliberate action, sometimes malicious, or by neglect.

One such recent high-profile removal was the destruction of the great statues of Buddha by the Taliban Government in Afghanistan.

While some may argue that the preservation of heritage cannot be compared to the saving of human lives, others may consider that the destruction of heritage is but another form of genocide through the removal of those material things that give a people their identity and way of life. As yet, cultural heritage may still not be high enough on governmental agendas such that its destruction is considered as one with other forms of crimes against humanity.

Additionally, governments and authorities often see those who advocate the preservation of heritage, in particular historic buildings, as a sector of the loony fringe, especially if they get in the way of making large piles of dollars by destroying heritage.

On the other hand, much heritage is disappeared largely through ignorance of its history and value and in this, Bermuda has suffered as much as many other places, especially in the decades after the Second World War, and in relation to its small landmass.

Several dozen such disappearances took place in the lands of the Dockyard, which eventually included all the acreage north of Watford Bridge, most of which is now in the possession of the West End Development Corporation, a Government quango. This article gives some examples of the buildings that have been lost, nearly all with little or no record beforehand.

The Girls' School was the last of the group presented here to be demolished, having survived into the early 1980s. It stood on the corner of a side road in Ireland Island North and had a wonderful view to the northwest and the sea, over the Pumping Station on the flat below. The building was probably constructed in the early 1900s and at least one photograph of it has survived, along with a young child's desk, found in the bushes nearby about 1984.

Around the corner on the main road stood the Boys' School, a more elaborate building, probably built for such an educational purpose in the mid-1800s. Information on that building and the Girl's School may survive in archives in Britain, but there appears to be little in Bermuda that can add to the story of the Boys' School, which today would undoubtedly be a listed Grade 1 historic structure. It was demolished in the late 1950s or in the 1960s: older readers may be able to advise of a more precise date of death.

In addition to attending to the education of its children, the Royal Navy also considered the health of its personnel with the construction of several hospitals and ancillary buildings. Coming over Grey's Bridge from Boaz to Ireland Island, one would have seen on the hill ahead the great home of the Deputy Inspector General, or in civilian parlance, the chief medical officer, of the Dockyard.

That large mansion was demolished sometime after the War and its site, like that of the RN Hospital on the adjacent hill to the north, is but an unfettered forest of casuarinas (themselves one of the great alien agents of the destruction and disappearance of Bermuda's natural environment).

Recent discoveries suggest that the Royal Naval Hospital was built in 1818 in the same pre-fabricated manner as the Commissioner's House. In addition to cast iron structural features, such as veranda columns, floor joists, and possibly cast and wrought iron roof trusses, some of the stonework for the building was the hard local limestone, as seen today in the existing buildings of the main Dockyard itself.

That great building ended its life as an egg farm, which of course became dirty and "a health hazard", or such like bureaucratic excuse, and was demolished: "In November 1972, it was so infested with rats and its condition was so dangerous that the Fire Department burned it to the ground". You may well ask: "Well, whose fault was that?"

Few are now alive who remember the RN Hospital, which was probably destroyed without prior recording. In the next few decades they will pass into memory, hopefully in a civilised way, taking with them the last first-hand knowledge of the "disappeared" built-heritage of the Dockyard.

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Dr. Edward Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. This article represents his opinions and not necessarily those of persons associated with the Museum. Comments can be sent to drharrislogic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.