I stepped off the tuk tuk onto a dirt parking lot Monday morning in the middle of December with a vauge idea of what I was about to do, not sure what I’m about to see and hear. Along with my team, I pay the admission fee, put some headphones on for a translated audio tour, and begin my walk through the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, known to many as The Killing Fields. The Killing Fields is a place outside of Phnom Penh where collectively over a million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, under the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. This went on from 1975-1979. So much hurt in so little time.
I walk down the cement trail surrounded by trees, flowers, all sorts of plants and grass. The place was filled with quiet, to be respectful for the lives lost. Listening to the little electronic box hanging around my neck to lead me through, our first stop was a place called the truck stop. Trucks would come in carrying hundreds of innocent people, blindfolded and tied so they didn’t know where they were going, to be murdered and buried here. A few steps away is what used to be somewhat like a large shed that was only used to hold people. Dark and crammed together, people would be trucked in faster than others were killed so they had to stay and practically wait their turn in that shed. A lot of the structures were torn down, but their memory still lives in that place.
What takes up a good majority of the field is sunken in, about 7’x7′ plots of land that are graves of the murdered. Some have been excavated, some had as many as 400 bodies recorded in one mass grave. Some still had bone fragments and teeth in the soil. These graves were roped off so no one might step on top of them.
Off to the side sat a lake, surrounded by trees, rocks, lily pads, and cool breezes. I took some time there to sit and listen to the stories of victims and survivors through my audio box. I can’t imagine some of the things I heard, losing children, being tortured, raped, and then to be brutally murdered and thrown into a pit. Some of the victims didn’t die immediately, so they sprayed a powder poison over the bodies to finish the job. They would strip the women and children naked before they’re execution to take away any last ounce of dignity.
I continued my journey through the fields, coming up to a tree I’ve heard about before, The Killing Tree. Probably the hardest thing to look at and be around, and the hardest to put into words. It is now covered in bracelet chains as a memorial to all the children and babies killed here. [This is difficult to type] Soldiers would grab children and babies by their legs, and smash their skulls against the tree. When the tree was discovered, pieces of hair, bone, and brain was embedded onto the bark. To the right of the tree is the burial plot that the victims were thrown into.
I didn’t understand at all why they would chose to kill the young children, when they could have them do whatever they wanted, but the rationale was “to stop them growing up and taking revenge for their parents’ deaths.”
They had glass cases outside that held the clothes of the victims. One last piece of their lives, now as a testimony to all who walk by.
More glass boxes that held bone fragments and pieces recovered from the grave sites lined the rest of the tour, more burial plots and graves that are now covered with grass and plants.
I walk past the rest of the grave sites, my audio box starts playing a recording of the music and gas generators that filled the camp to drown out the sounds of people being executed. I listened to the sounds covering torture.
At the end of the tour is a building called The Stupa. It has acrylic glass and is filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. Some of the lower levels are opened during the day so that the skulls can be seen directly. Many have been shattered or smashed in. On the lower level is more articles of clothing and even tools used as weapons.
Even though that was hard to walk through, we still had 1 more place to see. A couple of my teammates and I headed into the city and came to this museum we’ve heard about from some locals. S21. (Security Prison 21.)
Repeating the same process as that morning, I pay my fee, put my headphones on, hang the audio tour box around my neck and begin. I walk into the courtyard of what used to be a high school. What once was filled with friends, laughter, education, and life, was turned into a prison, interrogation, and torture center. An estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned there. Tuol Sleng was just one of at least 150 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. Of Tuol Sleng’s 20,000 inmates, only 7 survived.
I walk around an area that has 14 white caskets as a memorial right inside the yard. Twisted razor wire surrounded the walls, preventing people from getting out, or in. More trees, benches, grass, flowers, bushes surrounded the area. There are 4 large buildings in the compound, A, B, C, and D. All serving a different task.
Building A holds the large cells in which the bodies of the last victims were discovered. Building B holds galleries of photographs. Building C holds the rooms sub-divided into small cells for prisoners. Building D holds other memorabilia including instruments of torture.
At the time, building A was used to interrogate and torture. Victims were chained down onto metal beds, windows that once let in cool breezes, now were boarded up to not let any fresh air in. Each room had a picture of a victim in the bed, their ankles locked into place by a metal bar.
I go in and out of each room, trying to absorb what I’m seeing, my fingers touch the scratches in the wall from God knows what, I’m watching my steps to notice if the tiles tell me a story, each room almost identical to the next.
I leave building A and head over to building B. I pass by more structures used to torture, my stomach turns as I hear about the details involving them. The front of building B was covered in the same razor wire, from the very top of the building to bottom. Some prisoners would try to jump from the top to commit suicide, a quicker death was more bearable than living there. Inside these buildings were pictures of soldiers, Pol Pot himself, and many, many pictures of victims. Every prisoner would have their picture taken and a file about them. Each photograph of the victim had the same expression; dark, hollow eyes, a tired soul, and sadness blanketed their face.
Building B had cells, small 4’x6′ walls where 2 or more victims were chained and placed into for holding. The old musty smell of the wood structures overtook the room, the whole floor was filled with these cells. I looked into each one, my mind forming people that had laid there, the blood stains that still stuck to the floors stared back at me.
The last 2 buildings were more of the same, my box played more stories in my ear and fed me more information faster than I could process it.
More cells, more pictures, actual instruments of torture. Each level, each room that flowed into another room told of the 4 years of hell on earth for these people.
I sat in the courtyard for about 45 minutes just reflecting on what I toured. What I just wrote doesn’t compare to everything I saw and heard that day. There’s nothing that can be done now, it’s over. Some Cambodians want to forget it even happened, some survivors want to tell their story.
The Cambodian people are strong. I can’t even imagine what living through that would be like, not knowing when you were going to die, how you were going to die, even IF you were. I didn’t know much about the genocide before coming to this place. I had heard about it when I chose this country on my route. These are the things that aren’t taught about enough, evil is very real in this world and it’s heartbreaking to see people believe another life is worth nothing. Their own people. It’s good to understand the country’s hardships and history, it helps to understand their people. I will never understand to the full extent of what they experienced, but I will never be insensitive or numb to it.
I pray that God will come in and comfort these people and restore this nation, that there will be peace, and a heart for God. And I know what you might be thinking, I honestly don’t know how God can allow something like this, I don’t have that answer. He gave us the free will to think and make decisions, and some people use that to bring torment and control over others.
If you are ever in Cambodia, I encourage you to come to these museums, or at least do your own research on this piece of history. It’s gonna be hard, and that’s okay. It should be.
