Cambodia has been through hell. And from the looks of it, it's still there, but everything's relative. Civil war and the terror of the Khmer Rouge basically destroyed this country. They are desperately trying to build on nothing.
When the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in 1975, many people cheered, because they were sick of the five year civil war between the Loyalists and the Communists. The terror had yet to start.
In a paranoid frenzy, The Khmer Rouge abolished currency, schools, closed all stores. They separated families, and sent most everyone out to the country and forced them to farm, giving them very little food. About one fifth of the population died from this rough treatment during the four yours the Khmer Rouge was in power.
When the Vietnamese finally liberated Phnom Penh in 1979, they discovered unimaginable horrors. The Khmer Rouge had been operating a torture and extermination facility out of a former high school, called Tuol Sleng, or S-21. They had rounded up thousands upon thousands of people who were educated or skilled and horribly tortured them to confess to political crimes. Then they killed them. The facility was founded solely to extract confessions, whether true or not, and dispose of the enemies of the state. Of the hundreds of thousands of Cambodian men, women and children interred at S-21, only 12 survived. And hardly any of them knew why they were there.
The prison is still there, and it's chilling. I hardly wanted to walk into the cells, i was so repulsed. The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis, kept meticulous records, and photographed all the prisoners. There's a gallery of many of those pictures. The people look so confused and so scared.
What happens to people that makes them so cruel? How damaged do you have to be to hurt people like that? How is that damage prevented?
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2 comments:
Hozzowell,
I certainly don't know what makes people so cruel, but for me, once I experienced the evidence of the holocaust, it never left me. In fact, I'll be back in Auschwitz/Berkanau in May when Pausha and I head back to Poland to visit her family. It's like I need to go back to it all just to remind myself that it really happened; that we really do this to other people; that I might one day have to make a choice about life or death.
Who are we going to be in the face of such choices?
I've been watching your posts with an interest bordering on obsession. I'm super glad that you're sharing your experiences. I almost feel like I'm there. Thanks for the vicarious pleasures. I envy the free spirit you're channeling at the present.
Take good care.
Christopher.
thanks chris- have fun in poland
rock on with your bad seff
h
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