Today I have known a new level of horror and sadness. We took a tour of S21 and the Killing Fields today. Getting to see this after having watched the movie gives me a fuller understanding of the reality of this war.
S21 was a regular school full of cheerful little kids in the classrooms and on the playground. That was until the Khmer Rouge. These men had a hunger for power and were ruthless at pursuing it. General Pol Pot wanted to build a new communist government faster than anyone ever had before.
The Khmer Rouge completely evacuated the entire city of Phnom Penh in one day. This ordinary school became Station 21; a torture prison for their captives. Here, they imprisoned and tortured many Cambodians before hauling them off to the killing fields to be executed.
Their plan was to eliminate all of the educated people and anybody who had been spoiled by the ideas of the world. They wanted to restructure Cambodia as a completely agrarian society. All of the citizens were transported into the countryside to work as rice farmers, or they were transported to the killing fields to be eliminated.
It is estimated that 2 million out of a populations of 7 million were killed because they were viewed as a threat to the progression of the new communist government. Educated men, women, children and anyone who held a different religious view were systematically tortured and killed. As the younger kids were taught to hate the old ways of thought, they also were trained to be ruthless killers and watchful eyes for the militia.
We toured the school and saw how the classrooms were divided into tiny cells. The floors were equipped with shackles and chains. Some of the torture devices were still there for us to see. Pictures of some of the prisoners were posted in rows that filled a few of the rooms. There were some paintings from a former prisoner depicting the various forms of torture such as pulling out fingernails and pouring alcohol on them, dunk tanks where the prisoners were shackled with their heads under water, and many other things.
There were photos of dead prisoners chained to iron beds or laying on the floor. One that stands out in my memory is a man that had his face beaten off. It just wasn’t there anymore. It is hard to understand such vile brutality. It just isn’t human.
Later in our tour, we went to the killing fields. At the school, we had seen a movie that explained how many of the executions were carried out. The prisoners were bound and blind folded and forced to kneel by one of the many pits. As they kneeled, the guards would walk up and hit them on the back of the neck with an iron rod. Once they were down, the guards slit their throats and pushed them into the pits with the other corpses.
Walking through the killing fields and seeing those pits made it all so real. As we walked along the dirt paths between the holes, I noticed pieces of cloth imbedded in the mud. I came to a tree that was surrounded with dirty clothes and bones. At a glance, one could dismiss the old bones and sticks, but I recognized a joint. Then upon closer inspection, I also saw teeth. My heart jumped into my throat. I have been walking around on the remains of people who suffered and died at the hands of evil men. I cannot even explain the feelings that overwhelmed me.
As I stood there contemplating what I was seeing, some older men walked up. Their faces were sullen as they stared at the rags. They looked at me, and they began to motion to explain without words the atrocities that took place here. I could barely stand to watch them. I knew from the movies and pictures what had probably happened, but to see these Cambodian men demonstrate the things that were so real to them, was almost more than I could handle.
Do these men know people that were killed here? Probably. Were they captives themselves, or where they among the refugees that fled the country and returned years later when peace had returned? I wanted to hear their stories. I wanted to just listen to what they so desperately wanted to communicate to me.
They followed us down the path for a little while, gesturing as we went along. I understood exactly what they were saying. They demonstrated the tortures and the killings. I finally made my way off down the path a little further ahead. I needed time to grieve and pray as my eyes filled with tears.
As I was leaving to return to the bus, I passed one of the men again. He began motioning again and speaking intently in Khmer. I looked around for one of our translators; I desperately wanted to talk to this man and hear his perspective. I did find one of the guys, and we talked for a moment. He talked about how the guards hung speakers from this tree and played loud music to cover the sounds of screaming.
I would have liked to talk for a while, but it was time to return to the vans and move on. It was a relief to move on to something less depressing, but hard to get the images and thoughts out of my mind. How does one go on living after surviving something like that? How does a city rebuild? I know that God is my hope and my security, but what pushes them on? What sustains them? I believe it is the same God that loves and cares for us all, even if they don’t know it.
God, redeem this horror for your glory. Rebuild this place with your love and your security and your hope. Use this experience to help me understand and to fill me with compassion for the Khmer people. Lord, let your glory be known in this place.
