A Little Perspective

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There are no puns and no jokes about what we saw this week. In fact we don't really know what to say. We visited Choeung Ek also known as the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng or the S-21 detention and torture centre used by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

The first sight greeting you at Choeung Ek is the memorial stupa containing the skulls of 8000 of the victims. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the site is trying not to step on the bones and rags still protruding from the paths around the mass graves.

You can still see the "magic tree" from which a loudspeaker was hung to drown out the victims screams and the "killing tree" used to execute their children.

If you want to know more about the history have a look at wikipedia or the website of survivor Dith Pran. Dith Pran was also the subject of the film, "The Killing Fields" which we watched the night of our arrival in Cambodia.

We continued onto the former school used as a detention and interrogation centre for opponents (real and imagined) of the Khmer Rouge before they were transported to the Killing Fields. Many of the torturers were no more than school children brainwashed by the regime.

Several of the rooms in the old school buildings have now been turned into exhibitions of photographs portraying the victims of Tuol Sleng. Each inmate was photographed on arrival and a detailed biography of their life up until arrest was taken. Confessions were later added to these files, although these were all obtained under torture.

Many of the instruments used, and photographs of the results, are still on display in the various cells in each of the buildings. It is a truly sobering experience to walk past thousands of faces staring out at you. All with a similar expression of fear from the knowledge of what awaited them in S-21. Of the estimated 20,000 inmates that passed through the gates of Tuol Sleng, 7 survived.

For a little more reading on Tuol Sleng, visit wikipedia.

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Photos

Tuol Sleng
A deceptively normal looking building

Tuol Sleng Corridor
Normality starts to fade

Tuol Sleng Photographs
Just a few of the thousands of faces

Comments

[deleted_21595]

Strewth
I can remember the Blue Peter appeals for Cambodians when I was a kid, but I never really realised quite how nasty the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were. I don't know whether its more shocking to realise that people could be subjected to such treatment during my lifetime or to have my complete ignorance shown for what it is. A very thought-provoking blog that puts my everyday worries into very stark perspective. We truly don't know how lucky we are. It would have been easy for you not to write about Choeung Ek, but I'm glad you did. Thanks.

[david & pauline]

a very moving entry.
a quality plog entry dealing with a very sobering and thought prevoking situation. I can think of quite a few people who should be made to go and see what actually happened in Cambodia and be shown the mass graves as you have shown with the picutures they might then "get real and get a life" stay safe ,speak soon. david