The Killing Fields
I've been dreading going to see s21 and the Killing Fields ever since I came to Cambodia but I also knew it was something I needed to face and remember.
I guess I should toss a little history in here, I'm skirting around war and things here because O really can't face reading details right now. . In the 1970s the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. They wanted a Communist state and rounded up all politicians, teachers, policeman, lawyers who worked under the former government, any one really who weren't farmers or workers, to be put to death so no one could protest the changes.
S21 one was of the prisons many of these people were first taken to. They were tortured there to get more information on where other intellects and their families might be hiding. You see if there was an intellect in the family, they killed the whole family babies and all to destroy the evil root. They were kept in small cells, shackled....tortured with anything like axes, bamboo, pinchers, holding their head under smelly water.
Of the 70 000 prisoners who went into s21 only 7 made it out alive and that was because the leaders there didn't have time to execute them before they fled when the Vietnamese came in. Every single other prisoner was taken to the Killing Fields.
They have opened over 80 of the 147 mass graves at the site we visited. Over 8000 bodies were unearthed in the, at that site. Some soldiers who were killed for knowing too much and they were beheaded...babies....whose heads had been bashed off a tree that we were shown. Women, men kids...
On the path we walked their clothes and bones and teeth still show in the mud.
I'm glad I've seen to remember and to tell on to people.
The people of Cambodia remember and when they speak they grow so sad and their grief shows and yet...they try to be a happy people.
It really is a special country.
There will be photos...a few. I'll create a filter when I can post them if people can't bear to see.
I guess I should toss a little history in here, I'm skirting around war and things here because O really can't face reading details right now. . In the 1970s the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. They wanted a Communist state and rounded up all politicians, teachers, policeman, lawyers who worked under the former government, any one really who weren't farmers or workers, to be put to death so no one could protest the changes.
S21 one was of the prisons many of these people were first taken to. They were tortured there to get more information on where other intellects and their families might be hiding. You see if there was an intellect in the family, they killed the whole family babies and all to destroy the evil root. They were kept in small cells, shackled....tortured with anything like axes, bamboo, pinchers, holding their head under smelly water.
Of the 70 000 prisoners who went into s21 only 7 made it out alive and that was because the leaders there didn't have time to execute them before they fled when the Vietnamese came in. Every single other prisoner was taken to the Killing Fields.
They have opened over 80 of the 147 mass graves at the site we visited. Over 8000 bodies were unearthed in the, at that site. Some soldiers who were killed for knowing too much and they were beheaded...babies....whose heads had been bashed off a tree that we were shown. Women, men kids...
On the path we walked their clothes and bones and teeth still show in the mud.
I'm glad I've seen to remember and to tell on to people.
The people of Cambodia remember and when they speak they grow so sad and their grief shows and yet...they try to be a happy people.
It really is a special country.
There will be photos...a few. I'll create a filter when I can post them if people can't bear to see.