A still-grieving yet steadfast and strong community shares its collective soul.
“A little to the left, please. Great, now just a bit forwa– perfect.”
I said this from behind the camera when it hit: Wade Michael Page may have wounded the Sikh community, but he clearly failed to divide it. I was standing in the basement of Oak Creek’s Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, photographing a handful of people who weeks earlier survived the Aug. 5 shootings. Meanwhile, temple life was happening all around, much as it would on any given Sunday.
Upstairs in the kitchen, men and women were preparing the traditional community lunch. The dining hall’s rugs would soon be crowded once worship wrapped up. A few feet away, a pack of children giggled and ran around. Only my makeshift photo studio and I were out of place, though you would hardly know it by the warm smiles, handshakes and head bows that I received at regular intervals.
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| Harjivan Singh, 7, wears a memorial T-shirt bearing the names of the six who were killed Aug. 5 at Oak Creek’s Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. The shirts are the brainchild of the temple’s youth leaders. | Murphy, still in recovery, met with victims’ families during a Sept. 9 private visit to the temple. Here, he embraces Satpal Kaleka, who lost her husband, temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka, in the shooting. |
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| Amarjit Kaur stepped outside the temple’s prayer room when she heard shouting. | Before she fled to the kitchen and hid in a cramped pantry with 15 other people, her left arm was grazed by a bullet. She now has a scar just above her hand. Those who hid in the pantry – adults and children –believe a refrigerator next to its entrance saved them from the shooter’s view. |
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| In the days after the attack, the temple was quickly cleaned and patched up, but one bullet hole remains in the frame of the door to the prayer room. It’s a small but stark reminder of the attack, which saw Oak Creek Police Lt. Brian Murphy get shot 15 times in the parking lot, including once in the throat. | Before the president died, he wielded the knife shown here in a struggle with the shooter. |
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| Sita Singh’s family: (left to right) daughter Sarabjit, son Jasbir, daughter Kamaljeet, son Harmeet and wife Surinder. | Prakash Singh’s family: (left to right) son Prabhjot, wife Ravinder and daughter Palmeet. |
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| Ranjit Singh’s family: (left to right) daughter Jaspreet, wife Lokinder, son Gurvinder and daughter Jasbeer. | Suveg Singh Khattra’s family: (left to right) daughter-in-law Kulwant, grandson Mandeep, son Baljinder, grandson Maninder and granddaughter Gagandeep. Not pictured is granddaughter Sandeep. |
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| The family of Satwant Singh Kaleka, the temple president who died defending a place of worship he helped create: (left to right) son Pardeep, wife Satpal and son Amardeep. | Santokh Singh, who fled the temple after he was shot, shows the scar from a surgical incision. Singh navigated a field and a tree-lined path, arriving at the home of Jim Haase, a retired Oak Creek firefighter who cared for him until help arrived. “I don’t know why he chose this one, but he came to the right house,” Haase says. |
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| Hardeep Ahuja has driven highly visible gestures such as the creation of a large handmade sign posted at the temple’s Howell Avenue driveway. It thanked Oak Creek and later welcomed wounded police Lt. Brian Murphy home from his hospitalization. “We can’t just stay in our little bubble,” Ahuja says. | Meanwhile, youth leaders are selling memorial wristbands, like this one emblazoned with the date of the shootings on one side and a phrase on the other: “United in Peace.” |
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| Sons of Paramjit Kaur, the lone woman killed: (left to right) Kamaljit Singh Saini and Harpreet Singh Saini. | Many in the Sikh community stepped up in official and unofficial capacities. Vikramjit Singh temporarily took on the role of acting temple president. |
If the killing of six people and wounding of three others was a shock, perhaps more remarkable has been the poise of the Sikh community in the aftermath. Nearly all signs of that day’s horror were quickly scrubbed away or patched up. The pantry that hid 16 people soon resumed its normal function. The temple’s living quarters, where several were wounded or killed, became home again. The lobby, where a lone bullet hole remains in a door frame, is atwitter with cheerful conversation.
It’s with this in mind that we present a photo portfolio of a community that’s resolutely moving forward rather than retreating. Look at their faces. Look into their eyes. You’ll see pain, heartbreak and weariness. But you’ll also see resilience and, in some instances, even defiance. Family members, survivors, priests and temple leaders stared unflinchingly into the camera’s lens. Here they were – and are and will continue to be – in a sacred space where they lost their loved ones, some even back in the very basement where they hid, listening to a hellish symphony of gunfire, commotion and silence.
As days slip into weeks, which fade into months, it’s easier for the rest of us to begin forgetting that day. Not so for the people you see here. Youth leaders have created memorial wristbands and T-shirts bearing the names of the six victims along with two bold words: “Never forget.” This Sikh community definitely won’t.