Rachel Weinberger and
Dana Martin:
(reflecting on the activities of Dec 28)
(reflecting on the activities of Dec 28)
Today we went to visit the Killing
Fields and the Tuol Sieng Museum of Genocidal Crimes. The Killing Fields were
where millions of Cambodians were slaughtered under the rule Pol Pot. Pol Pot
was the cruelest dictator in Cambodia. As soon as he came into power, he had
former government supporters and current government dissenters sent to either
prisons for questioning or the fields for death. At the fields, we saw skulls
and clothes of the people that were killed. We even walked over the bones of
the bodies that were buried under our feet and were revealed when the rain washed
the dirt away. The most upsetting event we learned about was what they did to
kill the babies. They would grab them by their arms and slam their heads into
trees to kill them. We visited the tree and saw all the memorial bracelets that
hung on the tree to honor them. It was so hard to see because these children
were too young and innocent to do anything hostile towards the government. It
just shows how cruel Pol Pot was during his dictator years.
During our tour in the Museum, we
saw different forms of how the Cambodians were tortured to give information.
Some of the forms included drowning, whipping, hanging and slashing. The
torturers were kids, around our age, from schools that were brainwashed to
follow the rule of Pol Pot or face death. They were too young to organize or
rebel against these cruel acts against innocent civilians. As we walked through
the old school that was later turned into a prison, we saw pictures and
photographs. They were of the convicted and the executioners themselves. It
made everything more real when you put faces to the dead. Some were brought to
tears while others just had to look away or go outside to take a breath. As we
were leaving the Museum, we met one of the seven survivors that lived though
the prisons. He is now 82 years old and does not speak English, but we were
fortunate enough to have our tour guide be our translator. With such a tragedy
in our minds, we mounted the bus and went back to the hotel to rest before
heading off to a nice dinner at the Lotus Blanc.
What an amazing opportunity to meet one of the survivors!
ReplyDeleteIn the early 1980s my husband and I and our one-year-old lived in a tiny house in Kensington, MD. Three small bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen without a dishwasher or room for a table. Across the street from us in a house of the same size lived a large extended family of Cambodians, about 15 people. They had fled Pol Pot's regime and were making new lives for themselves here in the United States. They had also made it their mission to get the word out about the genocide in order to help those still in Cambodia. They would invite neighbors over to their house in the evening, serve us tea, and then show a slide show and tell us the story of what was going on. That was thirty years ago, and even today I can still remember how my skin crawled hearing their story and how tragic it was that the U.S. would not -- could not? -- intervene.
ReplyDelete---Mrs. Semple
The details in this post are directly in alignment with author Loung Ung's account of her life during the Pol Pot's reign...of terror.
ReplyDelete