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Published: March 7th 2010
Choeung Ek
This tower holds 8000 skulls, other bones, and clothes of the 17,000 victims.Today we got up early and enjoyed pancakes and freshly squeezed juice for breakfast. Then our friendly tuk-tuk driver arrived and we set off for what we later agreed was our "favorite--for lack of a better word" stop on our trip. By far the most upsetting, it was the most important. To have skipped the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and the Tuol Sleng Museum (a school-turned-prison, also known as S-21) would have been a disservice to the people of Cambodia and negligent on our part.
For those of you who were like me, and know little to nothing about the history of Cambodia, allow me to give you a brief, glossed-over version of events. I'm not trying to be cold or insensitive with my delivery, but I've done enough reading to know that there are others who can tell the story and their stories with more honesty and emotion than I can ever give you. I cannot tell someone else's personal story. And the story of the Khmer Rouge is personal to Cambodia.
After five years of civil war, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Pehn (the capital of Cambodia) on April 17, 1975. The people's joy was short-lived
as they were told to leave the city because the Americans were coming to bomb it. Approximately two million people fled the city in all directions, under the assumption that they would not go far and that they would return in a few days. Many did not lock their doors. I saw photos and video of the empty city and it was one of the eeriest things I've ever seen.
Pol Pot was in charge of the Khmer Rouge. He had a dream of building a communist agrarian society. Anyone who posed a threat to this ideal was killed: intellectuals, doctors, teachers, monks, anyone with glasses. Nevermind that the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were all intellectuals and Pol Pot himself was university educated. The goal was to get rid of all western influence. Schools and banks were closed, money was gone, private ownership outlawed, and the clock was reset to Year Zero. You could liken it to Mao's plan for China but with the delusion of doing it in fewer years with less work.
For three years, until late 1978, it is estimated that over 2 million people died through murder, torture, starvation, and overwork. This was
one fourth of Cambodia's total population.
Our first stop was the killing field Choeung Ek, located about 15 km outside of Phnom Pehn. It is estimated that 17,000 people were killed here, most of them prisoners of S-21. They were usually beaten or pick-axed, because bullets were expensive and in short supply. Babies were beaten against a tree. Music was piped in so executioners wouldn't have to listen to the gasps people gave as they were killed. Then the bodies were piled into mass graves.
Julie and I hired a guide to lead us around the site. It was such a small area--I was expecting it to be larger for all the horrors that had transpired here. We started at the monument--a Buddhist stupa with Khmer architecture--that stretched to the sky. In it were layers and layers of bones, skulls, and clothing found at the site. It's hard to imagine what 8,000 skulls looks like, but now I've seen it. I believe there were 17 layers. The bones and clothes were unearthed when they started digging in 1980.
A few Khmers joined us, which I wouldn't have minded, except that they smiled and laughed the whole
The clothing I tripped on
Not all the clothing has been dug up. time. It's hard to be somber and reflect upon a mass grave when a woman with too much red lipstick is constantly laughing heartily. At one point we were walking between some trees and I stumbled. I looked back and realized I had tripped on clothes that were still in the ground. Clothing pops out of the ground in many places along the paths. So do some bones. It has a sobering effect.
We took the tuk-tuk back to town. Our driver had asked us if we wanted to go to the zoo first. We looked at him like he was crazy. Neither of us was in the mood for a zoo.
When the school was closed in 1975 it became a prison. Over 17,000 people passed through and it is thought that at one point 100 people a day were killed here. Classrooms were turned into cells the size of closets. Others were turned into interrogation and torture rooms. Some of the rooms still had blackboards. The garden outside still had remnants of exercise equipment turned torture devices.
The complex is one km in size and consists of 4 buildings. Most are empty classrooms converted to
Mass Grave
This one held 450 people. torture rooms with a single, metal bed in the middle. You can see where blood stained the floor and has been bleached away. Some rooms have photos on the walls of how the room was found in 1975. Other rooms had rows upon rows of photos; rows upon rows of faces of victims. The Khmer Rouge kept careful records and photographed everyone who passed through.
The last building had a photo exhibit done by a Swede who had visited i 1975. With each photo were the thoughts he had then and what he thinks looking back on it 30 years later. A few photos also had thoughts that weren't allowed at the time and were most likely closest to the truth. His views and perspective gave a new dimension to the whole experience.
By the time we left, I could feel my legs shaking and I could barely walk. It was a relief to sit in the tuk-tuk. It was a relief to drive through Phnom Pehn in the year 2010.
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Butterbean89
Joe Walton
Wow
Recently I have become increasingly interested in the Khmer rouge and Cambodia and am currently reading 'first they killed my father: a child of Cambodia remembers'. I am currently in the process of roping the girlfriend into saving for a trip to Cambodia but it may be some time before I get a chance. Until then your awesome blog and my book will have to sustain me.