When Communism goes too far.
Day 8: Genocide
It was so nice to sleep in this morning, we ended up leaving the house at about 11 and walked to the S-21 Genocide museum. We left Dave behind as he has been quite sick and thought maybe if he rested today he could come with us tomorrow.
It was only about a 15 minute walk and easy to find. Another hot day in Cambodia meant our morning showers had already almost lost their purpose with the amount we were sweating.
The museum is located inside the old high school, which was also once the location if where thousands of people were tortured and killed during the Khmer Rouge period. They have the rooms set out the same way they were during this time - for example metal beds and chains etc and then they put an actual photo of a dead victim on the bed on the wall. They also had rooms that had been converted into 20 smaller cells made of brick or wood, with small blood stains still visible on the floor and chains cemented to the ground. The balconies and opening of the school buildings used to be completely barbwired as well to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide. It was a very sad place but I learnt a lot about this awful Genocide.
Basic history lesson: Pol Pot wanted to create a pure communist country and set the year back to zero. He killed anyone with and education, glasses, painters, mechanics, anyone with any talent. He sent city people to farm and destroyed all technology. This began in about the 60’s.
In 1975 is when they started taking prisoners to the s-21 prison under speculation of plotting to retaliate against the khmer rouge. Most of the prisoners were innocent. From babies to granparents, they tortured everyone until they confessed something, (true or false) and then they were killed.
After the museum we visited the Killing Fields. They would tell prisoners of S21 that they were taking them to work on the farms, but actually they were sent away to be executed. There were mass graves dug, and the khmer rouge would basically people push people in and put chemicals on them, or slit their throats and just pile hundreds of people into the one huge grave.
The site has been converted into a tourist spot now, actually a beautiful place with trees and grass and flowers. But you can still see bone and rags emerging from the soil in some spots, and skulls in the memorial stupa to remid you what a sad place it once was.
After that we went to the Russian market for a bit and did some gift shopping, then (after a few wrong turns), we walked back to Dave’s house.
We chilled for a while then caught a tuk tuk to the riverside for dinner with him which was nice, and we walked back along the river and through the seldom quiet streets back to his house.
