i don’t really know what i was expecting to see today. but i certainly didn’t have this in mind.
i’ve known for a long time that cambodia is the place of the killing fields. i never knew what those were. i’ve heard certain words thrown around, sure. words that could only attempt to paint an accurate picture.
but i had no idea what i was actually getting myself into. we pulled up to the old prison this afternoon. the halls of this place were once bustling with enthusiastic adolescents who were eager to learn and excited about making a difference in their world. this high school became a main setting for detention, interrogation, torture and killing after being overtaken by order of pol pot in april 1975. over the span of four years over ten thousand innocent people came through the doors of this concrete hell. only seven people walked away from the torture chambers that should have been an inevitable death.
chum mey is one of those people.
i would not hesitate to call it a divine appointment.
as we were walking up to building c of the prison campus today we noticed an elderly cambodian man. we asked him why he was there and he told us that he is one of only three survivors who are still alive. he visits the prison periodically to tell his story in hopes that people will never forget about the cambodian genocide. as we continued talking to mr. mey he recounted his story to us and was gracious enough to answer all of our questions.
he and his wife were taken captive in 1978 by the khmer rouge regime. he was split up from his wife and put into the torture chamber we stood in today. he was held captive there for four months before being rescued by the vietnamese army. during his time in the torture chamber he was confined to a small brick cell with nothing but a small box to go to the bathroom in. he was given only two small handfuls of rice porridge each day. his hands and feet were shackled while he was beaten. if he made a sound they would beat him more. he told us of a time when his back was so swollen from the beatings that he couldn’t bear to have it touch anything. he tried to sleep sitting up but the guards made him lay on his back, forcing him to endure the excruciating pain. all he could do was cry silently. screwdrivers were lodged into his toe in an effort to pull it off. he was given electric shocks twice everyday and as a result is blind and deaf on his right side.
i have never before heard firsthand of such brutality and malice.
