The Killing Fields

One of the things that I’ve been meaning to write about is my experience at the Killing Fields and S-21 in Cambodia.

I won’t try to recount the history these places here, but click on the links above if you want to learn more. And I suggest you do before reading on.

I’d heard from many people how disturbing and upsetting the Killing Fields were, and I braced myself for the worst. And yes, it’s impossible to comprehend how people can become so savage that they will bash babies heads against nails embedded in trees, torture and maim political prisoners, or saw off people’s head with palm fronds. And all this against their own people, not some foreign, maligned group. Their own.

But the site itself felt quite removed from all this, almost beautiful. I arrived at the site in late-morning, just as the sun was getting to its hottest. There had been a downpour earlier, and I could feel the heat and moisture radiating from the ground. Walking across the paths of the Fields, clothes and pieces of bone had risen to the surface, but they looked so rotten and abstract that they may as well have been pieces of soil.

Among the former mass graves, which had now grown over with weeds and flowers, baby chickens flapped about looking for grubs, and in others frogs ducked into pools of water.’

From down the road (somewhere) I could hear school children singing, made more dreamlike because it was in Khmer and I could only make out a tune rather than words.

For me, the place just felt too alive. There was an almost palpable energy to the place, and that energy was one of life, and maybe even happiness. At the time I felt vaguely guilty for not feeling upset by the Fields, but this didn’t make it any less poignant.

In stark contrast, the former school turned Cambodian gulag of S-21 was every bit as chilling as I had heard. The grey stone of the building felt dirty, heavy and cold. The oppressive atmosphere was underscored by splashes of blood that remained to this day.

But what I found most striking, and puzzling, was the detailed records that the Khmer Rouge had left behind. Within the prison there were stacks of files on every prisoner that had been through, including front and profile photos of each victim (and I say victim because only a handful ever made it out alive). There was even a posing chair for the photos which held the prisoners head in a static position to ensure consistency of the photos. Despite being an army comprised of largely uneducated youth, dedicated to the ideal of an agrarian peasant society, the Khmer Rouge kept detailed, methodical records of those they killed.

In that respect, they reminded me of the Nazis- genocidal intent married with meticulous book-keeping. This was probably the most disturbing thing of all.