A day of contrast

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On Boxing Day I headed for the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum. A stark contrast to the symmetry of the architecture of the regal buildings and gardens, these 2 venues are a testament to a very asymmetrical time democratically.

Sobering sites

Tuol Sleng Museum is the site of a former high school that was taken over by Pol Pot and his security forces and transformed into a venue for detention and torture. Some classrooms were divided into cells for torture, others were used to house detainees en masse. It was known as Security Prison 21 or S21. In this place, the rooms remain intact and the instruments of torture are on display as evidence of the atrocities committed.

Thousands of people were held prisoner here. They were all photographed and records kept of their backgrounds and the torture they endured. Hundreds of these photos are on display - black and white headshots of men, women and children. Some women had babies with them.

Between '75 and '78 more than 17,000 people held at S21 were taken to the extermination camp - the killing fields at Choeng Ek. In this place, mass graves were found of more 8,000 victims. Their skeletons have been enshrined in a memorial stupa. They bear witness to death by shooting and bludgeoning (to save bullets). Mothers watched as their babies were beaten to death against a tree before finding a similar fate themselves.

The remains have been exhumed from a number of graves. However, the ground we walked over in the area showed signs of bones and clothing coming through the soil. The area was huge, and yet this was just one section. Graves seemed to have the remains of victims grouped eg women and children together.

This rather sobering day left me feeling slightly off-colour and I retired to my room and bed early. Man's inhumanity to man has happened throughout history I know, but it definitely left a bitter taste in my mouth.

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