It was never in any of my history books.
It wasn’t something my parents or grandparents ever talked about.
I’d heard it mentioned in passing, but never knew details.
Being in the middle of Cambodia, it was inevitable that we’d learn about the Polpot Regime. Everyone above the age of 40 has vivid, horrific memories of the civil war leading up to the communist takeover, and the 4 years of systematic killing and starvation that followed. When we first arrived in Phnom Penh, we toured 2 memorial sites to learn more. I didn’t take very many pictures. I couldn’t. Just a quick warning: the pictures I did take are all here, and one is a bit graphic.
When the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge took over in April of 1975, they aimed to change the society as quickly as possible.
They killed anyone involved with the previous government.
They abolished all money and seized all private property.
They shut down all hospitals.
They shut down all schools.
Schools were turned into prisons and interrogation facilities. The most famous one of these is in Phnom Penh. It was named S-21, and is now known as the Tuolsleng Genocide Museum.
The barbed wire and tiny brick cells remain unchanged. Wire cots and bedpans still sit in each isolation room. As one of our new friends pointed out in the schools we visited near our village, you could still see some bloodstains on the floors.
As part of the Khmer Rouge’s desired shift to a “pure agrarian society,” (read: everyone is a farmer) the Khmer Rouge ordered everyone to evacuate all major cities. To quicken the evacuation, they told everyone that America planned to bomb all Cambodian cities. Being right next door to America’s involvement in Vietnam, it wasn’t hard to believe this lie. The cities were emptied in 1 day.
About 30 minutes from the inner-city S-21 facility is the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. Most people know this place as “The Killing Fields.” That’s really all it is. Two memorial buildings stand there now, and grass shelters were built over several of the mass graves in the ’80s. A tall charnel stands in the middle of the site, containing what is left of many victims.
But so many people were carelessly murdered and buried there. Even after careful excavations in the ’80s, the victims’ clothing and remains often wash up from the ground after heavy rains.
Over 2 million people were killed while Polpot was in power. In such a small country, that’s about 1/4 of the population. Everyone lost someone. I know numbers that big are hard to wrap your mind around, so I collected a few individual accounts from our elderly friends in Khampong Cham this month. Those will be on my “Faces of Cambodia” post.
You might be shocked to learn all of this. I definitely was. We visited those sites on our 3rd day in Cambodia, and it has been in the back of my mind ever since.
On one of the walls in the S-21 prison, someone had written,”Aucun dieu n’aurait laissé faire ça.” No god would have let this happen.
That statement has been rolling over in my mind. I wish I could talk with the tourist who scrawled on that wall. God didn’t do this… people did this. People who believed lies, people who were tangled in something so evil that they couldn’t hear God. I don’t know why God has ever allowed things like this to happen. I have some ideas about free will, etc. but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.
After hearing about these places over the phone, a friend asked me, “So is Cambodia the darkest place you’ve been yet?” And I surprised myself with an immediate, “No!” Even after such turmoil, having only been in true political peace for the last 12 years, Cambodia is covered in hope. That’s what I feel here. The country is full of rich and beautiful history that stretches far beyond the wars and the Khmer Rouge. The people are friendly. They are beautiful. When I think of Cambodians as a whole, I see them rising out of ashes. There is hope here.
If you want to learn more about the Polpot Regime, I just read a book called “First They Killed My Father” by a Cambodian woman named Loung Ung. She was 5 years old when the Khmer Rouge took over, but she remembers the events with vivid accuracy. You should be able to find it at any bookstore.
-Katie
