Adi seemed rather quiet when I first met him, but after a while, he became quite talkative, very sharp, and showed his good sense of humour, although he said that a motorcycle accident injury to his head a few years ago had made him rather ‘slow’.

Adi was born in 1968 in Serdang Bedagai, North Sumatra, the youngest of eight children. He later moved to Medan and is the main character in Joshua Oppenheimer's 2014 documentary film The Look of Silence. From the confessions of the mass murderers in Oppenheimer's films and also from Amir Hasan's 1994 book Embun Berdarah (Bloody Dew), which narrates in detail how the author killed communists around 1965, Adi found out how his eldest brother was killed. Amir Hasan, one of the killers of Adi's brother, wrote the book as a historical record of his ‘heroic acts’ in murdering communists. In Oppenheimer's film, Amir claims the book is ‘important for people who continue their higher education’. Amir also drew illustrations in the book and gave a copy of this book to Oppenheimer, who subsequently lent it to Adi.

Our family lived in the village Serdang Bedagai, North Sumatra. I am the youngest of eight brothers and sisters. Most people in my hometown are not political and cannot be bothered much with politics. Most were illiterate, including my parents. Only their children went to school and even then only through to primary level.

My brothers told me that the head of the village always invited them to attend arts events. But then the head of the village had to list who were the communists amongst the people. At that time, my father worked as a labourer in a plantation owned by Socfindo [a large plantation company] and every now and then, he also worked as a fisherman. Neither of my parents liked getting involved in organisations. Maybe that was why my parents escaped being put on the village head's list – but not their three children. My elder brothers loved to get wrapped up in organisations, and my eldest abang [brother], Ramli, was the leader of the Indonesian Peasants Front [BTI] in the village.

Ramli was only 23 years old when he was dragged into a truck at night by a group of mass murderers. In the truck, he saw my cousin.