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This blog is not intended for young readers (under age 10 probably) because of the seriousness of the topic. 

To be completely honest, I was completely unaware of what the Killing Fields were until the month prior to going there. They are similar to Hitler’s German Death Camps (ex: Auschwitz). The Khmer Rouge was led by Pol Pot. Pol Pot’s idea was to start a communist society where everyone worked in agriculture. 

The Khmer Rouge came to the capital city of Phnom Penh (where we stayed all month) in 1975. They rounded up everyone and forced them into the countryside. They ruled the government of Cambodia from 1975-1978. They had work camps (similar to Hitler’s Dachau concentration camp). They forced men, women, and children to do agricultural work with little food and long hours.  Anyone who was educated (teachers, doctors, nurses, etc) and religious leaders (monks, priests, nuns, pastors, etc) were killed (many times brutally executed). “At least 1.5 million Cambodians died from execution, forced hardships, or starvation during the Khmer Rouge regime under POL POT” (World FactBook). 
Some of the clothing of the Killing Field victims

Our team went to see the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields are where the Khmer Rouge performed mass executions on men, women, and children. They even killed babies. They had clothes of some of the victims in a glass case. There were mounds of dirt where cloth was protruding (where the rains had moved some of the cloth to the surface of the mass graves). There was a tree where the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge would kill babies. 

A sign at the High School death camp
Our team also went to a High School turned death camp. This is where they brought prisoners suspected of being anti-Communist. They tortured the prisoners trying to get confessions out of them. They also executed them.

As we walked through the High School, they had pictures of the prisoners in some of the rooms. There were a few pictures that reminded me of some of the people from KALeB’s night shelter (one of the university students and three of the boys). These people were so young and so full of promise but that opportunity was taken away from them. They instead were forced into hard labor or killed. 

There is a trial under way right now regarding the Khmer Rouge’s genocide. It is being administered y a UN-Cambodian tribunal. Some of the top surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are on trial for their crimes against humanity.