Trigger warning: Please be aware this post contains images of the remains of the victims of the genocide in Cambodia. Images contain mass graves and clothing of the victims and the cells in S21 prison. I grappled deeply with taking and sharing these images and writing this blog post, but I was encouraged to share this experience by our Cambodian tour guide in an effort to educate, acknowledge and respect the 3 million Cambodians who died under the Pol Pot regime.
Remembering the Genocide in Cambodia
Discovering the world is a joyful, exhilarating and an enriching experience.
It can also be heart-wrenching and can almost make you lose faith in humanity. Visiting the Killing Fields embodied the worst of all human traits; the lust for power and the evil ramifications it produces.
My goal with documenting today’s visit to the Killing Fields and Tuol Long S-21 museum, is not to give a history lesson of the Pol Pot regime and the subsequent genocide of the Cambodian people ( you can research in your own time), but to share openly and vulnerably the impact travel can have.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and cocktails; travel is a gift that opens one’s eyes to places and moments in time that should not be forgotten. We cannot move forward or evolve as a civilisation without appreciating what we have, and unfortunately, the life we live today has come at the expense of those who suffered and died at the hands of other humans.
This is why travel is so important. It’s an opportunity to get out of our cosy bubble and really connect with people who aren’t all that different to you and I.
The Killing Fields
The sheer atrocity of what occurred in this calm, green field rattled my core. I love nature as it symbolises the embodiment of creation. Yet here, tens of thousands of humans were tortured and maliciously murdered, their blood seeping into the very soil that produces life. The cruel juxtaposition was almost too much to bear, and yet I must press on, for to turn away and protect my weak sensibilities was not an option.
Walking along the wooden paths erected on and around the mass graves was unbearable. Knowing clothing, bones and teeth were still being unearthed was horrendous.
Normally, I adore trees, but when I came upon the ‘Killing Tree’ that was used to bash children’s heads against – much more economical for the Khmer Rouge than wasting a bullet – a hatred erupted from deep within, and I wanted to uproot that tree with my bare hands.
A memorial housing rows upon rows of human skulls nearly tipped me over the edge as I read the description of how each person this skull belonged to was killed. I left a lotus flower, said a prayer and promised them that they were not forgotten.
Tuol Seng
Utterly emotional spent, I didn’t want to go to the genocide museum at Tuol Seng. A former school, the buildings showed the faces of the victims. Staring into the eyes of these black and white portraits, I grappled with the fact that these innocent people were catalogued in some kind of macabre badge of honour by their murders.
Men, women, children all with terrified and vacant eyes, looking back at me, pleading for help. I imagined this was probably the first and only time they’d had their photo taken, and instead of smiling for the camera, they sat and suffered this inhumane ordeal that sealed their fate.
We toured the cells where prisoners were shackled in 1m x 1m areas, looked up at the barbed wire that was installed on the outside of the buildings to prevent hopeless prisoners end their own life and saw the gallows in the courtyard.
I cried buckets of tears, as one word rattled around my confused brain, Why? For what? For power, an ideal, greed? It is incomprehensible a human of flesh and bone could do this to another of the same make up.
As hard as it was for me, I could not imagine the collective pain and trauma of the Cambodian people. The pain, the loss and the heartache are tangible and make up the tapestry of the psyche of the population today - and will continue for generations in the future.
May the horrors never be repeated and that the Cambodian people find strength to move forward and heal, and possibly, in time, forgive.
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