And so on a serious note, I would like to point out that some of you may not want to read today's blog, as it contains some upsetting material, but also know that what I have been able to write about, only touches the surface of what went on during Pol Pot's reign in Cambodia ...
The Museum is housed at what used to be Security Prison-21 (S-21), which prior to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, was in fact Tuol Svay Prey high School!
S-21 became the largest of the detention centres in Cambodia, where millions of 'Political' prisoners were brutally tortured and once they finally gave in and made their enforced confessions of spying and betrayal, (even though these were untrue!!!), they were taken to The Killing Fields and executed. And that was if they were not fortunate to have died or managed to commit suicide before! (Eventually barbed wire was nailed across the front of some of the buildings to prevent prisoners jumping to their deaths over the balconies).
We walked through the old school rooms, disgusted and sickened at the photographic evidence on display, shocked at the tiny bricked cells built into each classroom, each cell just big enough to hold one inmate shackled in solitary confinement with nothing but an old metal first aid box for a toilet! There was no bed, no mattress, no window and in some cases no door! Each prisoner lived on a bowl of rice porridge a day, in which they were lucky to find more than two grains of rice! And when I say Prisoners I mean, men, women AND children of ALL ages!!
The Khmer Rouge kept records of everything, photographs of every prisoner, both before and after torture and even had artists paint scenes of some of the brutalities that took place.
As Pol Pot's terror continued to reign, so did his paranoia and it wasn't long before many Khmer Rouge members started to find themselves joining the other prisoners in being tortured and murdered.
By 1977 it was said that an average of 100 people a day were being killed at S-21 alone!
In 1979, the Vietnamese finally liberated Phenom Penh, they stormed S-21 and found only 7 prisoners still alive; the group consisted of photographers and artists. Another 14 prisoners were found dead in different torture rooms. Each one still bound to their respective beds, nothing about them recognisable apart from the fact that they were all adults; thirteen male and one female. I couldn't look at the photos hanging in each room, the images my mind was creating was enough to make my stomach churn.
We walked through a room filled with torture equipment on display, again more photographs and again more parallels with The Holocaust!
The final room contained a small altar on which sat a little gold stupor. Incense sticks were smouldering around it as people lit them in respect of the millions murdered. High on the wall hung a large framed photograph of the map of Cambodia, but this was no ordinary map. It was made up from hundreds of human skulls, skulls of Pol Pot's victims!
The gruesome map had been devised by the Vietnamese in memory of the dead, however The Cambodians understandably found it offensive and after much discussion it was dismantled!
To the left of the stupor stood a large glass cabinet that housed the hundreds of skulls originally used to make the map along with other human bones. I stared at them in disbelief and turned to our guide for the day. My Western way of thinking kicked in and I asked him why they hadn't been buried, it seemed like an incredibly macabre thing to have them on display. He explained to me that the majority of Cambodians are Buddhists and therefore would have been cremated on a funeral pyre. However, because there were millions of bodies, many of the Cambodian people were in conflict as to what to do, seeing as there was no way to tell who each bone belonged to. And so it was agreed that this was in act, the most respectful thing to do.
I turned away feeling deeply distraught that these people had suffered so much and in my Western eyes had not been properly laid to rest. I lit an incense stick and prayed for all of them and the victims of other Genocides that had taken place before, since and probably in the future. And then I cried ... I sobbed ...
I stepped out into the sunshine and as I cried I looked around at this ordinary looking place, a place built to educate and protect children, a place where children would play together and forge new friendships. An ordinary looking place that was turned into a hell hole. And I continued to cry.
Bob walked over to me and held me as I sobbed and begged the question: "Why?" All he could do was shake his head. "I don't understand, I don't understand!" Was all I could manage to stutter. He looked at me and said: "I know, this is the kind of thing that makes you question your faith in god". "No", I said, "This is the kind of thing that makes me question my faith in mankind!"
I had to question whether or not to join the others as they left to go and visit The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and decided it was important to go. Just as I believe it is important for people to go visit The Concentration Camps from the Second World War and remember the millions murdered then.
From 1975 to 1978 approx 17,000 men, women and children, all torture victims from S-21 were executed at Choeung Ek. The majority of them bludgeoned to death with whatever could be found, the children picked up and their heads smashed against "The Killing Tree" and all because it was thought to be a waste of money to use bullets! (Again reminiscent of the Nazis). The bodies were left in mass graves where DDT was poured over them to speed up decomposition, poison anyone still barely alive and to cover up the smell!
In 1980, 129 mass graves were found, as were the remains of 8985 people. Every year during monsoon season, the rain draws more bones, teeth and ragged clothing to the surface.
In 1988 a memorial stupor was erected near the exit of what was once the beautiful orchard of Choeung Ek. Behind the glass panels, than 8000 skulls, separated by age and sex can be seen carefully and respectfully arranged.
It was almost just gone lunchtime by the time we left, but I was in no mood for eating and so I went back to the hotel and slept for an hour. After which I met up with Caroline for a nice peaceful walk around The Royal Palace.
The Royal Palace was closed due to the preparations for the Kings funeral next week. Only Cambodians were allowed through to pay their respects and so we went off to see The Silver Pagoda - so named because of the floor covered in over 5000 silver tiles.
Preserved by the Khmer Rouge to "demonstrate its concern for the conservation of Cambodia's riches to the rest of the world". The main thing that stood out for me in The Silver Pagoda was that it was the only place during the whole of our tour where the Buddha statues had not had the gems stolen from their eye sockets. They were quite beautiful and it was a perfect serene place to visit after the horrors of the morning.
Particularly entertaining was the family of monkeys playing around outside, looking very cute and cuddly. That is until a French tourist got a bit too close to one of the baby monkeys and offered it a flower to eat. The mother monkey barred her teeth and hissed at the poor French Man as she ran towards him. He turned on his heel and tried to hurry away in a casual and cool type manner. Boy did we laugh!
That evening Karen, Liz, Jamilla, Caroline and myself took a Tuk Tuk over to The Foreign Correspondence Club - or FCC as it is known - for a cocktail. This was where the foreign journalists used to 'hang out' during the war. We climbed the steps to the roof bar and looked out over the city of Phenom Pen as we supped on our Mojitos, daiquiris and margaritas. Unable to fathom what had happened in this lovely country, not even forty years ago ...
An apt way to spend a morning on a day that was coincidentally enough, World Holocaust Memorial Day!
It was early to bed that night, after all it had been a full on day and we had to be up early the following day to head off to a home stay in Kampong Thom, but not before stopping off at a little cafe, where the speciality was ... Deep fried tarantulas!
Nice post and also appreciate your journey.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's hard to believe I was there two and a half years ago. Those images are still so clear and will stay with me forever.
ReplyDelete