Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S21) and Choeung Ek

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These photos may be very disturbing to some so we put them on a seperate blog as they did disturb us but they also touched us to see the pain and the tourture these people suffered in our own lifetimes, they are something that we wanted to still share on our blog as they are such important places in Cambodia's history that we have visited. To see these places now open to the public is showing that this wonderful country is rebuilding itself and is trying to move on.
Firstly we went to Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. Its original use was a school (Toul Svay Prey Secondary School), until the Khmer Rouge commenced their reign of terror, it was then transformed into a primative prison and interrogation centre. The class rooms were changed to cells seperating prisioners from each other or housed in rows of prisoners all shackled together. between 1975 to 1979 an estimated twenty thousand victims were imprisoned in security prison 1 (S21 as it was known). Teachers, students, doctors, monks, peasants, and westerners were just a few often with there spouses and children. they were all brutally tourtured and killed or taken to extermination camps outside the city and killed here. Often the bullets were saved so other methods were used.
One such camp/ mass grave site is Choeung Ek (The Killing Fields) it was here in 1980 8985 people, all victims of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge comrades were exhumed from 86 mass graves. A further 43 graves have been left untouched.
The site is dominated by a tall, white, hollow stupa that commemorates all those who died from 1975 to 1979. the site is a strong reminder to all who visit what evil minds can do. as you walk amongst the countryside you hear the children close by at play, and see the everyday life of the village folk and farmers in the fields all around. Whilst seeing the large mass grave sites, old clothes from people killed here sticking out of the mud, along with piles of bones and teeth that have been found along the walks (this is added to daily by the people who come to pay there respects finding such items). Although Choeung Ek isby far the largest and most notorious of the killing fields, many more similar areas can be found all over Cambodia.
Our hearts and minds were so deeply touched by these sites, and we spent our time there paying our respects and seeing how the Cambodian people are planning for the future and are moving on, whilst still remembering the many loses during the Khmer Rouge Reign of terror.

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