Tough Days
First let me thank everyone for their love, support, prayers, energies, and well wishes. I have heard from people from every aspect of my life. I am so grateful and I could not do this without. I am honored and can never repay all that you all have invested in this.
I don't really know how to handle this. I want to talk about it because it is important, we all need to see the evil so we can recognize it before it happens again. On Sunday, Madeleine and I visited Toul Sleng Genocidal Museum also known as S-21.
This was a former high school which was turned into a Khmer Rouge interrogation/torture site. One of many. We spent two hours walking through the buildings. Some were former classrooms turning into torture rooms and holding cells. I needed to walk into each room, and feel the heaviness that still remains. We also spent time looking at the pictures of several hundred of the victims. As an interrogation site, the staff at S-21 was focused on getting information. They kept meticulous records, taking pictures of all the people who came through. When it was clear that the regime was coming to an end, the staff destroyed many of the records. The surviving records which included the photographs of the victims, only tell part of the horrific story.
As I scanned each and every face, I saw hints of my own. Some had similar eyes to me, others had heads or cheeks shaped like mine. I looked closely at each of them. The evil of this place became most clear to me, when I came across the faces of very young children, no more than four years old. Regardless of their age, sex or nationality (there were non-Cambodians tortured and murdered as well), they all faced the same conclusion.
On Monday, the first day of our riding, we visited the Choeung Ek Killing Field. I have been dreading this day for as long as I can remember. This is where prisoners from S-21 were brought to be murdered. There is a monument at the middle of the site with about 8000 skulls that have been excavated and analyzed for sex, age, race and method of execution. These came from eighty of the estimated 130 mass graves at the site. The remaining graves will remain as they are.
Being at these sites, it is impossible not to hate the evil people who did this. What is it in people that can get so broken that you stop seeing people as people. Some of the stories that have come out are worse than most people can imagine and we don't know all of it. It was almost unbearable to see the stacks of skulls and bones. The most long lasting image for me was the place called the Babytree. To save bullets babies were taken from their mothers arms and swang into one particular tree. There are still spots of darkened blood stained wood and reminat hair. Monsters do exist.
This is one of the smaller of 300 killing field sites across the country. We have plans to visit the largest later.
I am still struggling with what I've seen, felt and heard. Everyone should learn about this. This is not just important to the Cambodian people, it needs to be on the minds of everyone. These things are happening now in South Sudan, Syria,Yemen and Myanmar among many other places. There will be children of today, who will grow up with scars worse than mine. What will we do? What can I do?... I don't know. I am struggling with this. What can I do?
At this point I have not had any epiphanies. I'm still lost. Although these visits have been tough, really tough, this is one of the reasons that I came home. One of the faces I saw in the pictures or skulls I saw could have been my mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents, uncles, or aunts...I will never know.
I don't really know how to handle this. I want to talk about it because it is important, we all need to see the evil so we can recognize it before it happens again. On Sunday, Madeleine and I visited Toul Sleng Genocidal Museum also known as S-21.
This was a former high school which was turned into a Khmer Rouge interrogation/torture site. One of many. We spent two hours walking through the buildings. Some were former classrooms turning into torture rooms and holding cells. I needed to walk into each room, and feel the heaviness that still remains. We also spent time looking at the pictures of several hundred of the victims. As an interrogation site, the staff at S-21 was focused on getting information. They kept meticulous records, taking pictures of all the people who came through. When it was clear that the regime was coming to an end, the staff destroyed many of the records. The surviving records which included the photographs of the victims, only tell part of the horrific story.
As I scanned each and every face, I saw hints of my own. Some had similar eyes to me, others had heads or cheeks shaped like mine. I looked closely at each of them. The evil of this place became most clear to me, when I came across the faces of very young children, no more than four years old. Regardless of their age, sex or nationality (there were non-Cambodians tortured and murdered as well), they all faced the same conclusion.
On Monday, the first day of our riding, we visited the Choeung Ek Killing Field. I have been dreading this day for as long as I can remember. This is where prisoners from S-21 were brought to be murdered. There is a monument at the middle of the site with about 8000 skulls that have been excavated and analyzed for sex, age, race and method of execution. These came from eighty of the estimated 130 mass graves at the site. The remaining graves will remain as they are.
Being at these sites, it is impossible not to hate the evil people who did this. What is it in people that can get so broken that you stop seeing people as people. Some of the stories that have come out are worse than most people can imagine and we don't know all of it. It was almost unbearable to see the stacks of skulls and bones. The most long lasting image for me was the place called the Babytree. To save bullets babies were taken from their mothers arms and swang into one particular tree. There are still spots of darkened blood stained wood and reminat hair. Monsters do exist.
This is one of the smaller of 300 killing field sites across the country. We have plans to visit the largest later.
I am still struggling with what I've seen, felt and heard. Everyone should learn about this. This is not just important to the Cambodian people, it needs to be on the minds of everyone. These things are happening now in South Sudan, Syria,Yemen and Myanmar among many other places. There will be children of today, who will grow up with scars worse than mine. What will we do? What can I do?... I don't know. I am struggling with this. What can I do?
At this point I have not had any epiphanies. I'm still lost. Although these visits have been tough, really tough, this is one of the reasons that I came home. One of the faces I saw in the pictures or skulls I saw could have been my mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents, uncles, or aunts...I will never know.
Your writing is rich with honesty and curiosity, which makes it easy and enjoyable to continue reading as you share your story - even the more gut wrenching bits like this one. Thank you again for sharing, and thank you for including photos, they make the story tangible. I got chills from those skulls.
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