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This blog is going to be about the killing fields. It is an event that happened only 30 years ago here in Cambodia. Just a heads up if cry easily then u may want to get some tissue but I encourage everyone to read this.

While in Pnom Penh, Cambodia we had the chance to go and visit the Killing Fields. We didn’t really know what to expect but we did know a little bit about the history before we went. When we got there you could feel the heaviness in the air. I guess I can tell you a little about what happened before I get into what was there. A little over 30 years ago there was a rise of the khmer regime. Because of this the government decided to kill everyone that was a doctor, teacher, and one that was smart that could try to overtake them. At one point during this process the government put out that the enemy was going to bomb Pnom Penh. When the people heard this they fled to the fields and when they got there they found that it was a trap. There were soldiers there waiting for them, the` other people that did not flee were picked up by trucks and brought to the fields. The soldiers started to pick out the smart people and kill them the ones that were not killed were put to work as slaves. The people that were doing all this were eventually found out by a flood that had uncovered some of the graves, ehich caused them to search for more and the one place we went to they found 9 million bodies.

The first thing we came to was a temple that had 17 tiers (levels) to it. On the first level was the clothes of the victims and on the second thru the seventh level they had the skulls of the victims divided into their ages. On the rest of the tiers they had each kind of bone that was found of the victims. Each kind of bone was put on a different tier, from hip bone, to leg and foot bones, to hand and arm bones.

As we left the temple we started to walk a path around the fields. On this path there were signs that explained what happened at certain points. Like at one point it explained that at that point is where the trucks would bring the prisoners and that they would be put on duty somewhere or that they would be killed.

Throughout the fields there was numerous graves, including 3 mass graves, the largest being 450 people. In the second mass grave there were 166 headless bodies, and the last grave had 100 naked women and children.  In the smaller graves you could see remains of the victim’s bones and clothes that were left as a reminder to tourist that this actually happened.

Along the way there was a tree that was used to saw off heads and what hit me the hardest was there was another tree that the soldiers use to beat babies against to kill them. If you looked close enough you could see dents in the tree that had pieces of the babies’ skull in it and the tree had a tent of red on it from all the blood that was shed on it. Then there was another tree that they would hang speakers on to play loud music to hide the screams and moans of the people.

After seeing all this we went to another museum where we would watch a video about the killing fields. While looking around in the museum we were able to see some of the weapons that were used as well as the different things that were worn by the victims.

It is hard to explain in words everything about the killing fields but one final picture that I will give you is that when all of this was going on the ground was red from all the blood.