This was a really hard place to go. Seeing photos of the people who lost their lives unnecessarily here and seeing the small 1 by 2 meter cells people where forced into, movement being banned, to ly still on the floor for days on end between random beatings, hanging and mutilations.
We had a talk from an elderly gentleman who was one of 7 out of hundreds of thousands of people to survive the prison. He described to us in detail how he was forced to lie on his back in his own bodily fluids for hours. One night he couldn't sleep so he rolled onto his left side. Withing minuets a guard had sounded an alarm saying he was trying to escape. He rolled onto his back, but it was too late. He received a beating. Then was held down as his toenails were removed one by one with a pair of plyers. He also lost fingers at the prison but he would not elaborate on how he lost them.
He likes to return to the prison from time to time to teach people what atrocities happened there. Truly terrible.
The most emotional thing for me however was the photos of the dead. In 2007 the government paid for any Cambodians willing to visit the prison. Many used this as an opportunity to scour these hundreds of photos for a chance to glimpse a loved one. I could not begin to imagine how I would feel coming to a place like this to find a photo of my mother and father lying in their own filth, decapitated or with any of the wounds many of thes corpse portraits had. I love my parents so much, although I take them for granted I never want to loose them. I would hate to be a Cambodian, exactly my age coming to this hell hole to find those graffic images you sought to find the truth about you mother, father, aunts and uncles absence.The peak of the regime was only in 1975 this made it too real for me, along with the personal statements from guards and prisoners.
After the prison we went to the killing field. Although the killing field today has been made into a shrine it is still an incredibly morbid place. During 1975 70 people per day were brought here for execution. Bullets were not wasted on these people, children and babies were swung from the ankles into tree trunks, caving in their innocent heads. Women were often raped to such an extreme they would die. Men were struck with bats and hammers or simply buried alive. Nearly 200 graves in this field have been excavated finding from 200 to 500 bodies in each. There are still over 200 further graves they do not have the resources to excavate. As you walk around the field bones and teeth are still emerging from the ground. I walked by the river to find a collar bone half jutting out. There are so many bones that only skulls and femurs are preserved.
As I looked at the shrine in the centre of the field I broke down a little again.
Each level of this vast tower is full of human skulls. On one level alone was enough skulls to represent every friend and family member I have. Murder on this scale is inconsevable until you can see death lying their in front of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment