Between 1975 and 1979, the Killing Fields in Cheoung Ek, Cambodia was a site of torture and mass murder. Understandably it probably doesn’t top your list of ‘must-see’ places. But this is why I think everyone should visit the Killing Fields.
Aside from Angkor Wat and Tomb Raider, I didn’t’ know very much about Cambodia.
Although I’d heard about the Killing Fields and I’d read about the Cambodian genocide, I was in no way prepared for what I was about to see. Or feel.
The Killing Fields Memorial
My friends and I approached the high concrete walls surrounding the Killing Fields wide eyed and full of nervous chatter.
On entering the site we were immediately confronted with a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of people who were brutally killed by the Khmer Rouge. The memorial is marked with a Buddhist Stupa, a glass building containing thousands of human skulls.
Killing Fields Memorial
It didn’t take long for our wide eyes to narrow, our smiles to turn solemn and our chattering to silence. Within a few minutes we had placed our cameras and phones in our bags. For the next couple of hours, we slowly walked around in silence. We listened through personal audio systems as survivors of the horrific atrocity recalled and relayed their terrifying and horrendous experiences.
Khmer Rouge
I learned that in 1975 the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, took control of Cambodia. Almost immediately they turned hundreds of thousands of Cambodian men, women and children into slaves, whom they persecuted, tortured and murdered.
Families were forced from their homes, separated, starved, beaten, tortured and executed. Professionals, those who were educated, religious leaders, business executives, and anyone whom the Khmer Rouge deemed impure, of no value, or a threat were systematically massacred.
Thousands of Cambodian people have never learned the fate of family members, and some are still searching in hope of finding lost parents, siblings, cousins and even children.
I spent nearly three hours at the Killing Fields. I took three photographs. Somehow it didn’t feel right to take selfies next to a shrine of human skulls. It didn’t feel right to take photos at the site where babies were held by their feet and bashed head first against a tree until death silenced their screams. It didn’t feel right to take photos of the final resting place of thousands of innocent men, women and children who were thrown, some alive, into graves they had dug themselves and who’s remains are still finding their way to the surface today.
As I left the Killing Fields, eyes red and swollen with my broken heart in my mouth, it struck me that these atrocities happened less than 40 years ago. This was during our parents’ lifetime.
Why Should You Visit The Killing Fields?
The Narrator of the audio recording articulated the reason much more eloquently than I ever could…
This was hardly the first case of genocide. We never thought it could happen here. But it did. And the thing is, it can happen anywhere… Tragically, it will probably happen again. So for your sake, remember us – and remember our past as you look to your future.