Children play loudly in the yard of the school next door to the site. Do they know what happened here? I ask myself. Do they know that children their age, along with their parents, were killed here daily, beaten against trees, hacked with machetes? For their sakes, I hope they don’t know just yet. I hope they live with unencumbered minds unlike how those under Pol Pot’s reign of terror.
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I’ve been trying to figure out how to accurately describe what it’s like to visit sites like the Killing Fields and S-21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for a few weeks. After all, I visited a month ago. But words have escaped me. I read First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers in hopes of being able to get my head around what it was like to be in Cambodia during the 1980s. But I’m still unable to explain myself.
Sammi and I took a bumpy minibus ride from Siem Reap to the capital of Phnom Penh just to see the sites that are significant to Cambodia’s dark history. I knew that visits to the Killing Fields, known also as Choeung Ek, and S-21, a former school-turned-prison now home to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. We visited both sites in one full and heavy day, but we saw many of the same people. Seeing the two together puts the whole genocide in perspective.
The Killing Fields are, as the name implies, a massive plot of land where those deemed undesirable to the Khmer Rouge were killed and buried in mass graves. You can still see bits of bone and fabric coming up from the ground after a heavy rain, so the staff go around and collect them regularly. Each placard tells you more about the unassuming area that was the site of countless murders.
S-21 Prison is a former school that was taken over by the Khmer Rouge and used to house and torture criminals until they were brought to the Killing Fields for their deaths or killed on site.
The three cinderblock buildings that once taught teenagers about Cambodian history now house empty beds, bloodstained tile floors and photographs of the dead. Most rooms look the same, but each held a separate horror. The museum now has an exhibit on the Khmer Rouge leaders who are still being brought to justice years later.
What I found so hard to wrap my mind around was not the amount of people killed (somewhere around 1 million men, women and children) or the fact that no one was off limits or even how recently it occurred. It’s how it happened. Killings were scheduled daily like crossing off a to do list full of mundane tasks.
Prisoners were killed not in the mass extermination style of the Nazis, whereby they were shot by firing squad or poisoned by gases. They had to look at them up close, in the eyes, as they ended their lives in such a brutal way. The lives of the people weren’t worth the cost of a bullet, so people were killed with sharp branches, machetes, scraps of metal or anything else they could find.
I highly recommend you read up on the history of the Cambodian genocide before visiting, as it was much more than these mass killings. It was an overhaul of an entire society, a redistribution of wealth and work camps. It’s a formula followed time and time again before a genocide occurs.
Take a disgruntled population, add a scapegoat and a charismatic leader and you have the makings for a tragedy. Give yourself plenty of time to visit both the Killing Fields and S-21 Prison to let the gravity soak in.
Getting There
From central Phnom Penh, you’ll need to catch a tuk tuk, which can be arranged by your hotel or hailed on the street. The ride should take at least 45 minutes and will cost around $15 USD. The Killing Fields costs $6 USD for entry and audio guide, which you will definitely want.
S-21 Prison is within walking distance of most of Phnom Penh, including a few scary road crossings. Entry is $2 USD. You can also book a tour that takes you to both locations and provides visitors with background information on what led up to this terrible time in Cambodian history.
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