maybe there is no they, only us?

This entry will be for just the one full day I spent in phnom penh. If you are looking for something cheery, funny or uplift, I suggest you skip this entry. Everything is fine with me, but I spent the day at the killing fields (just like the movie) and at the toulsleng genocide museum. One could probably whip through these, but I (and the 4 people I went with) spent the whole day giving it the time it warranted. This might be a bit of a downer to read.

In the “killing fields” (mass graves), there is a monument where people pay their respects. If you look closely, you can see the many shelves through the windows. Each shelf has a few hundred skulls. The super brief summary of what happened is this: in 1976, the govt of cambodia was overthrown by a guy named Pol Pot who almost immediately began executing the middle class whom he saw as a threat. 1.7 million people were executed. The killings lasted for a little over 3 years before the vietnamese invaded and overthrew the Khmer regime.

I couldn't capture the whole shelf, but here's a part of it. Try not to gloss over the picture so you can sit with the concept that each skull was a person who wanted to live every bit as much as you and me.

The sign reads:
“Magic Tree - The tree was used as a tool to hang a loudspeaker which made sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were executed.” those are clothes on the ground next to it.

“Killing tree against which children were beaten”. yes, that's a pile of bones next to it.

super close up of the ground we were walking on reveals bones everywhere. It's the whitish stuff in the middle. When it rains and the mud drains away, more and more bones get revealed.

Along with bones, you see clothing getting unearthed.

After the killing fields, we visited the Toulsleng Genocide Museum. This used to be a school and then it was turned into a jail/torture camp where people would be taken until the executioner had time to execute them at the killing fields.

there was no smiling in the museum. at first we kind of laughed at this sign, but it didn't take long before no one was smiling.

There were walls & walls of pictures. Pol Pot witnessed many atrocities in the previous govt which he overthrew and was paranoid that the middle class or any “imperialist” (non-communist) was his enemy and wanted to unseat him. So to him, since “the others” were plotting to kill him, it was ok to kill these people.

Babies were not spared. Whole families were picked up on the street and told that they were going for “re-education”. Essentially, they claimed that they were going to learn about the benefits of communism. The survival rate after someone was picked up was less than 1%.

a tiny percentage of those killed overall. also a good picture to not gloss over.

“No one in Cambodia was left untouched by a genocide that killed almost one fourth of the entire population”. A fourth of the population in just over 3 years?

“... has found almost 20,000 mass graves...”

“It's better to arrest ten people by mistake than to let one guilty person go free”

the courtyard of the school turned prison turned museum.

written on one of the walls.

as you can probably see, this part of the trip affected me quite a bit. It's amazing what atrocities one can commit with only a few 'bad' people and a ton of scared people. the museum had accounts of people who survived the regime as well as people who worked for the regime. people who arrested, tortured or executed fellow citizens went back to living among the general population after the Angkar regime was overthrown. a bit uncomfortable, you think? “sorry for making your son kill your husband last year. nothing personal.”