We left the hotel in Sihanoukville at 8:00 this morning, headed back toward Phnom Penh. We arrived at the Killing Fields, which is just outside of the capital, after approximately 4-1/2 hours of driving. It was a sobering visit standing on the mass graves of the Cambodians murdered there by Khmer Rouge soldiers from 1975-78. The murders were atrocious: men, women, and children were driven to the fields in large trucks, with their hands bound behind their backs and their eyes covered with blindfolds. As soon as they arrived at the fields, they were told to kneel on the ground next to an open pit and they were killed brutally. The graves have been partially excavated, but clothing and bits of bones were under our feet as we walked around in silence. It was overwhelmingly sad to be there, faced with what one human being can do to another. It's a sacred place, the Killing Fields.
We also visited the site of another place of murder and horrific torture during Pol Pot's regime in the 1970s, the prison called Tuol Sleng that is in the city of Phnom Penh; sadly, these buildings previously had been a high school. Pol Pot came into power following the Communist Party of Kampuchea victory in 1975. Tuol Sleng, nicknamed S-21, held 1,200 prisoners at any given time, and it's estimated that 20,000 prisoners were housed there over the three years of the genocide. Former classrooms were converted into torture chambers and prison cells, which remain. This site has become the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and we toured the grounds and the buildings. It was very difficult to visit cell after cell, especially having to see the individual photographs of all of the prisoners that lined the walls of the buildings. Oneof those photos moved me in the saddest of ways: a very young man looked terrified as he stared into the camera to have his picture taken. Taking each person's photo was how the Khmer Rouge documented their prisoners. The expression of what I interpreted as terror on this young man's face was almost too much for me to bear, and I only wanted to look away, back away, and run. I had never visited a genocide site before today, and I found the experience psychologically and physically difficult in many ways.
As we were leaving, we had the blessed fortune of meeting someone very special. Of the 20,000 prisoners that entered S-21, only 7 left that place alive. One of those survivors was at the museum today and we were able, with a translator, to talk to him. We met Mr. Chum Manh, who now is 82 years old. Mr. Manh has written a book of his experiences at Tuol Sleng that all four of us purchased. He asked one thing of us: to please tell the story of the genocide to young people back in the U.S. When we explained that we were college professors, his face lit up with a huge smile. When we then explained that we would be bringing 28 students to the site with us in January, he kept smiling, shook his head, and clapped his hands quietly. We promised him that we would tell this story to all of our students, indeed, to everyone we know.
We will tell you his story.
But we pray that in January, you will get to hear the story directly from him.
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