The Killing Fields
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2009
1
84
89
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
This day however we had arranged for a Tuk Tuk driver to take us to the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek) and then to the Tuol Sleng Museum. We ordered breakfast at our hotel and I had a "banana" pancake with honey. It tasted unlike any banana I’d had before. Sort of sweet, which I think is because the bananas are sweet. At 9:30am on the dot our driver Jake picked us up and we settled in the back for what would be a bit of a harrowing ride out of the city. The roads we were on had a lot of big trucks spewing black exhaust and honking their horns frequently as a little scooter cut in front of them or as they let it be known that they were barreling through an intersection. There are very few lights here, instead you have to begin cutting across traffic and trusting that no one will hit you, which means as you drive down any given road any number of people on scooters, bicycles or in cars can be sitting in the midst of traffic in your lane as they slowly cut across the road. Craziness.
Drive home
We arrived at just before 10am and after paying our entry we arbitrarily decided to start with a building on the right; how lucky too, because at 10am they were showing a film about the Killing Fields that is only shown twice a day, 10am and 3pm. The film was haunting, a wailing Cambodian singer lamenting sorrows as they began showing black and white photos of the skulls and bones that had been discovered, photos of victims with the guards just before they were executed, and then the music died down as a narrator began explaining the sorry story. Between 1975-1979 roughly two million people died as a direct result of the Khmer Rouge which came to power then. Hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and executed, hundreds of thousands more died of malnutrition, disease and mistreatment. Those who were tortured and/or executed were the intellectuals – doctors, professors, lawyers, people living in the cities at the time, anyone associated with the former government and their entire family, those who spoke a foreign language, even people who wore spectacles. What is particularly ironic about this selective killing is that the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were all highly educated, having gone to Harvard, the Sorbonne, etc. before returning back to their country to create a “perfect” Communist country. Idealistically they turned away from China wanting a different kind of society, an agrarian-based society, hence their fear of intellectuals.
Under the direction of Pol Pot unspeakable cruelties including the Killing Fields and a horrible prison called S-21 were instated. Unfortunately Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1988 before being called to accountability for his actions, along with another top general. Of the three remaining men only one has admitted the atrocities that occurred and it was only in 2007 that they were arrested!
Description
As we watched the video my stomach turned. Not only were people tortured for months on end at S-21 before coming to the Killing Fields but once at the Killing Fields they were killed in an abominable way. Blindfolded and with their hands behind their back they were made to kneel above a mass grave, then they were hit at the base of the neck with a sharp pickaxe or shovel.
Weapons used
Once they had fallen their throats were slit and their bodies tossed in the pit. In case anyone had survived, and also to keep down the smell of rotting bodies, acid was thrown on the bodies before dirt was piled on top. In total the Killing Fields contained 129 mass graves, 17,000 bodies of men, women, and children.
Mass Grave
Another mass grave
In fact, babies were torn from their mother’s arms, then the babies were held by their little legs and swung against a tree to crack their skull before being tossed in the pit.
Horrible
Killing Tree
It was awful to learn about and some Cambodians object to the Killing Fields and the Killing Tree being on display. Others though feel it is a useful lesson to the world in order to help prevent such a thing from ever happening again. As we walked around we were silent, it was terrible. In the middle is a temple that houses all of the skulls and some of the clothing remains that were found.
So many...
Gabe with the skulls
Wounds are obvious
I'm shocked
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
After an hour we got back in our Tuk Tuk and headed back to the city. Our next stop was the prison, S-21 (Tuol Sleng Museum). Originally it had been a school before the Khmer Rouge turned it into a prison and place of torture.
S-21 Prison
Between the two places I found this the most difficult. We walked through rooms that held rudimentary beds, a black and white photograph depicting a corpse on the bed; apparently before the Khmer Rouge fled they killed 14 more people on these beds.
Photo on wall shows scene
Regulations
Gabe entered the second building before me and it was probably a good thing. It contained the pictures of all the prisoners tacked up on big boards encased in glass. The photos were basically mug shots in black and white and it hit me with a ton of bricks as I looked back into the eyes of these people.
Prisoners
How they were forced to take the photo
Mother and child
Suffering
Leg irons
So sad
Of the 20,000 who went through S-21 only 7 survived and tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at all these faces. When I got to the first wall of children I lost it and by the time I got to the end of the first floor I thought I might throw up. But then Gabe was there and without saying a word he gave me a big hug and then I climbed the stairs and gathered myself before viewing the small prison cells. The prison is really comprehensive with large paintings of life there and the tortures inflicted, painted by an artist who was one of the seven people who survived
Reading information
Other floors held stories of people whose relatives went to S-21. In most cases people just disappeared and no one knew what became of them. The Khmer Rouge was almost indiscriminate in who it picked up. In fact anyone who had previously lived in a city was “suspicious” anyone who had worked for the previous government and all of their relatives were all murdered, even people who joined the Khmer Rouge were killed at the slightest suspicion. Cambodians as a whole went mute, afraid of their neighbors who might accuse them of anything, afraid to talk to their families in their home in case someone was listening under the house. It was forbidden to have individual rights and so talking of love, a date, singing the wrong song could all lead one to “disappear.”
Behind the wire
Leg irons
Prison cells
Room after room
At three pm we were just finishing our tour and so we sat in to view the movie. Gabe, exhausted by the day fell immediately to nodding off but I was riveted. The movie followed the story of a young girl as told by her relatives and eventually through her love letters to her husband. The girl had been beautiful and was consequently raped by soldiers then ostracized by her community when she discovered she was pregnant. When the Khmer Rouge emptied all the cities and forced everyone to live in agrarian communities her child was taken from her; when she later married her cousin he too was separated from her and so began her long correspondence to her husband by letter. Eventually he was arrested for some vague suspicion on the exact day of my birth and the girl was arrested two months later. Unbeknownst to either of them they were both sent to S-21. She lived with torture for 6 months before finally dying or being executed. The story was haunting and the coincidence of my birth on the day he was arrested gripped me. It was a difficult day.We had planned to go to the market afterward but instead decided to go back to the hotel. It had been a terribly depressing day; at the same time I think it’s important to understand the history of this country, of its people, of its survival. I look around and think about how everyone my parent’s age lived through that time. I wondered if they took part and how that scarred them. In the end no family went untouched and it’s amazing to me that people still go on with smiles on their faces and trust in their hearts.
On the street
Drive home
One of the recommendations our friend Stacy had given us was to go to FCC for drinks, sitting and watching the river go by. She claims it is perhaps one of her top 3 places in the world, and given that she is possibly the most well traveled person I know we felt we MUST check it out. So we checked our email back at the hotel and found out our new Dutch friends Dave and Catharina were going to join us there at 6pm. After a long shower I felt better and we walked down the crowded streets to the FCC. About halfway there we got to an intersection where two parallel roads met and the result was people weaving in and out, switching roads in both directions. It was chaos and Gabe suggested we cross our street and avoid it completely, crossing back over at some other point. But I had another idea, I had watched locals all day boldly stride across heavy traffic and not get hit and so I thought we should cut straight through it all. Gabe somewhat reluctantly agreed and sure enough scooters, bicycles, and cars skirted us closely but never hit us and didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest.
When we arrived we could see immediately why Stacy liked the FCC so much. We climbed the staircase to find a gorgeous lobby with big tables and chairs, but best of all were the stools against the wall so that you could sit above the craziness below and watch people or the currents of the river as the warm night enveloped you and the cool breeze lifted off the water and blew down from the big fans overhead.
To top it off it was happy hour, with drinks half off, making Gabe’s beer $1 and my glass of white wine $1.75, hard to beat!
At the Foreign Correspondents Club
After a while we ordered the most delicious garlic bread and then Dave and Katharina arrived. They’re such a fun pair and we had another drink before heading to a pizza/Thai place down the way. Dinner was delicious and the company was great. We sat for hours ordering drinks and talking the night away until at ten thirty we all began yawning. Then we headed home, the day’s events finally taking their toll.
With Dave and Katharina
