Showing posts with label pol pot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pol pot. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Killing fields of Cambodia

The school house turned into the infamous prison S-21


A torture chamber


The Kamir Rouge photographed all prisoners



Fish net barbed wire were on the balconies, so noone could commit suicide


On the bus to Phom Penh I met a couple guys, one from UK, one from Holland, and we decided to share a tuk tuk to get to a guest house. The next day all three of us get another tuk tuk ride to the S-21 prison museum. For those who don't know about the history of the Pol pot government days here in Cambodia, look it up. In short, it was a mini holocaust where 1.7 million of Cambodia's 8 million citizens were tortured and killed. When the kamir rouge, under the dictator Pol Pot came into town, they converted a school in the middle of Phom Penh into a prison, complete with torture Chambers. They named it S-21, and this was our first stop of the day. It was kind cool to see one of the survivors there, signing his book for people, that he had written about his time in the prison.



Our second stop of the day was the actual killing fields. This place is where the prisoners from S-21 and other places, aftere being tortured, were brought to be executed. It was a sobering experiance, seeing the mounds of skulls, and recently excavated mass graves. I heard it compared to Auswitch (sp?) from the holocaust, by other people there. One of the workers said that when it rains heavily and floods, teeth and other bone fragment from the estimated 8000 bodies, are washed up and exposed, then collected by the crews.