In Paris and far beyond, there is a shocked reaction to the death of an 85-year-old man who lay on the street in the cold for hours at night. Passers-by ignored the fallen man completely. With death as a result.
Last Wednesday, the Swiss photographer René Robert went for an evening walk and slipped. For hours he lay on the street in the snow without being approached by anyone, let alone helped. However, when a homeless person took action and approached him, it was already too late. The rushed emergency services were unable to do anything to save the life of the man who died from the effects of hypothermia.
“Just stop in the street”
René Robert was a well-known photographer. Among other things, he made many portraits of great Spanish flamenco artists. According to a friend of him, the journalist Michel Mompontet, Robert died of ‘indifference’. “If there’s any purpose to this horrible death, let it be this: When someone is in the street, just stop and check on this person,” Mompontet said.
The world has reacted to Robert’s death with anger, sadness and bewilderment. “I can’t believe we would want to live in a society with so few values,” says Arcángel, a well-known flamenco singer who was once photographed by Robert. A Spanish organization for youth living on the streets says that ‘unfortunately this is the daily, cruel reality of many who live on the streets’. “What happened in our society that this could happen?”
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