the killing fields
There were two places on my trip to Cambodia where my camera stayed in my bag. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also known as the prison S-21), and The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, both in and around Phnom Penh. I visited them both on the one long, hot and emotionally exhausting afternoon.
After a morning of frivolity and shopping at the Russian Market, my roommate and I met the rest of our group at the hotel, and we took a minivan to the Genocide Museum, along with a local guide. From the moment I got in the van, to when we arrived back at the hotel around four hours later, I don’t think I spoke a single word. It seemed disrespectful to do so, and so I simply listened to the guide, and took in both the sites, lost in my own thoughts.
Before the Khmer Rouge tore into Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng was a high school. From 1975 to 1979 it was turned into a prison and place of torture. Around 18,000 people passed through the gates over the four years, and I believe there were only 12 known survivors. Today, it looks virtually as it did when the Vietnamese stormed it in 1979. A single photograph on a wall of each of the ground-floor torture rooms, of the body that was found there, are the only additions.
You can still see stains on the floor.
By the time we left the museum, after listening to the stories of our guide about what went on in the prison, and looking at rows and rows of photographs of the victims and the Khmer Rouge child soldiers, I had a splitting headache from keeping my emotions in check. I was not the only person in our group happy to hide behind dark sunglasses.
Our next stop was the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, about 17kms outside the city proper. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived, and we pretty much had the grounds to ourselves. The first thing you notice on arrival is the gigantic stupa, a shrine of rememberance to the people who died in the fields. It’s not until you look closer that you notice the piles and piles of human skulls, on display inside (I believe there’s around 8000).
Prisoners were bought to the site, a former orchard, to be executed. There were no bullets used here - those were believed to be too valuable, and instead more violent methods were used. Our guide shared specific details with us, like how the Khmer Rouge soldiers would play loud music to cover the sounds of screaming. Each detail or story made my stomach churn and my hands shake.
I walked around the site almost on tiptoes - thanks to the rains, there are human bones and the remains of clothing sticking up out of the dirt under the pathways. A number of mass graves on the site have been dug up, and these look like the B-52 bomb craters I saw in Vietnam. There are also some graves that have been left as is. One was marked to have contained the bodies of mostly women and children - and all were found naked. It was even more confronting than Toul Sleng. I have never before felt so much horror, disgust and sorrow.
Although it was a difficult afternoon, it left me with a new understanding of Cambodia and its people. Before this, I had only ever read about genocide in history books, or watched movies like Schindler’s List, The Killing Fields and Hotel Rwanda.
Visiting the sites made it real to me, but it didn’t help me understand why, or how. How could the rest of the world sit back and let something like this happen? How could the Khmer Rouge have a seat at the UN as recently as 1993? And why do we still let it happen, in places like Darfur? Will I one day walk through a similar site in the Sudan?
No Comments Yet