**The Photos in this blog are a bit graphic**

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It's hard to believe that you are in the same city that was taken over by Pol Pot and his army, the Khmer Rouge, only 34 years ago (17/4/1975)... and for four years turned his country into a land similar to the one described in George Orwell's 1984. He sent everyone from the capital to work in the fields, elimating money, class, education, libraries, religion, traveling, communication, and many other aspects of then everyday life. It's hard to not ask yourself how could someone live through such atrocities and how did people come to follow and allow a man to take over an entire country and kill his own people, friends, and likely family. Well this is what occured until January 7, 1979. The genocide is estimated to have elimated between 1-3 million of the Cambodian population, Vietnamese that were fighting on the offensive, as well as a number of foreigners...that was possibly 1/3 of the population at the time.

For those that don't know, and for those that do you can always be reminded, they killed intellectuals, professors, police, military, Cham people, farmers, their own regime; they did not discriminate in that aspect. You could be killed for simply singing a song of the past government, not disrobbing as a monk, being related to someone they arrested. Children were killed, many were not documented, alongside their parents so they would 'not seek revenge' in the future. The most imfamous of their prisons was the S-21 prison, which used to be a school consisting of four buildings. There were anywhere between 15-20,000 people that made their way to S-21, only 7 survived. Prisoners spent their 3-9 month stay being interrogated constantly, confined to small spaces or shackled to other prisoners, and tortued using various inhumane techniques. When the Vietnamese captured they found 14 bodies in various rooms. These bodies were buried in the courtyard outside of Building A.

There are also the Killing Fields. This is where the Khmer Rouge brought the S-21 prisoners when it was time to kill them, if they survived their stay at the prison. These killing fields are just a taste of the hundreds that are scattered all over the country. Here you were either shot, hit over the head and then had your through slit, or sometimes buried alive. Once the bodies were in the pits the executioners would pour DDT over the bodies to aid in elimating the odor and kill any victims that may still be alive. Children, mainly those under the age of 3, would be taken by the legs and smashed against a tree until they died.

This was a very sad time in history but the Cambodian people have chosen, and their government has agreed, that they would prefer to preserve what occured during those 4 years so that the world can see what occured and to hopefully keep this genocide from happening again.

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Photos

Info on the Museum...
What used to be S21 Prison.

Typical Room..
Which held high ranking officers.

The Temple at the Killing Fields
Skulls and various other items of the victims.

Clothing of the Victims...
From the Killing Fields

Killing Tree
Used to kill babies and small children