The Killing Fields - Pol Pot Era

This a prison cell at the high school that the Khmer Rouge turned into Security Prison S-21 during the 1975-1979 khmer regime. Prisoners were chained here and regularly beaten and tortured for information that most of them did not have. There were rooms and rooms like this and then there were walls and walls of pictures of people who died here or were sent on to the killing fields to be killed and buried in mass graves.


This is a map of Cambodia that is made using real skulls. Mom took this picture, I couldn't go into the room because it was all images and real bones.

This is the memorial at the Killing Fields. This is the place that the people were trucked to and murdered on mass. Little babies were smashed against trees, women and children were shown no mercy. The Khmer Rouge believed that if you killed the father (soldier) then you had to find all of the family members and kill all of them or they would come to revenge the death. No one was safe from the senseless killings.

"An estimated 1.5 million are worked or starved to death, die of disease or exposure, or are summarily executed for infringements of camp discipline. Infringements punishable by death include not working hard enough, complaining about living conditions, collecting or stealing food for personal consumption, wearing jewellery, engaging in sexual relations, grieving over the loss of relatives or friends and expressing religious sentiments. Khmer Rouge records from the Tuol Sleng interrogation and detention centre in Phnom Penh (also known as S-21) show that 14,499 "antiparty elements", including men women and children, are tortured and executed from 1975 to the first six months of 1978. Only seven of those detained at the centre will leave it alive.At least 20 other similar centres operate throughout the country." (internet quote)

This was a very difficult day for me to visit both the killing fields and the genocide museum. I felt awful....I thought that my mom was 15 at the time and my auntie was my age...9. This was happening in my parents generation and now there are bad things happening in my generation like Afghanistan and what will I say about that in 20 or 30 years to my children? What sense will we make of war ever?