Warning - difficult to see
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Update 15
Warning- this may be difficult to read.
Next morning we again filled up on the enormous breakfast choices & then took a long tuktuk ride to the Genocide Museum, known as S12. Once a school, it was converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Words are useless. Sadness too deep. Horror too shocking. Up to 3 million people died. Starved, tortured, brutally killed between April, '75 & Jan '79. Anyone with education, soft hands, eye glasses, teachers, doctors, lawyers, artist, religious leaders…and their families…gone. Old classrooms still with blackboards filled with the portraits taken for record keeping. Rows & rows & rows of faces. Those eyes staring at me. This was only one of more than 167 prisons. From there we went to one of the many killing fields where mass graves were discovered. As you look over the almost 2 acres, there are lots of large sunken areas. Pits once full of bodies. There was a 6 story high Memorial Stupa in the center filled with over 8000 skulls & countless bones. A healing ceremony is held here yearly. Everyone walked silently, sober along the path that encircled the area listening to the voice on our headphones tell the stories. Chilling accounts of the torture methods, executions, rapes told by the few who survived. They talked about the pain they carry and how they found a way to move on. And all this was going on while I was living a wonderful life as a young teacher & then a new mom. Since the borders were closed, few knew til it was over. I remember hearing a bit about it then but I didn't let it sink in or let it affect my happy life. Today I did. All the way to the pit of me. All I can do now is pray that those still affected…most Cambodians..will find peace & healing. I've been in Cambodia almost a month. I've only seen kind, gentle & friendly people. I wonder how much pain they carry in their hearts. Vivid photos I saw in the German concentration camp, Dachau flash through my mind. How many more times will humans be so tremendously, horribly cruel?
Next morning we again filled up on the enormous breakfast choices & then took a long tuktuk ride to the Genocide Museum, known as S12. Once a school, it was converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge. Words are useless. Sadness too deep. Horror too shocking. Up to 3 million people died. Starved, tortured, brutally killed between April, '75 & Jan '79. Anyone with education, soft hands, eye glasses, teachers, doctors, lawyers, artist, religious leaders…and their families…gone. Old classrooms still with blackboards filled with the portraits taken for record keeping. Rows & rows & rows of faces. Those eyes staring at me. This was only one of more than 167 prisons. From there we went to one of the many killing fields where mass graves were discovered. As you look over the almost 2 acres, there are lots of large sunken areas. Pits once full of bodies. There was a 6 story high Memorial Stupa in the center filled with over 8000 skulls & countless bones. A healing ceremony is held here yearly. Everyone walked silently, sober along the path that encircled the area listening to the voice on our headphones tell the stories. Chilling accounts of the torture methods, executions, rapes told by the few who survived. They talked about the pain they carry and how they found a way to move on. And all this was going on while I was living a wonderful life as a young teacher & then a new mom. Since the borders were closed, few knew til it was over. I remember hearing a bit about it then but I didn't let it sink in or let it affect my happy life. Today I did. All the way to the pit of me. All I can do now is pray that those still affected…most Cambodians..will find peace & healing. I've been in Cambodia almost a month. I've only seen kind, gentle & friendly people. I wonder how much pain they carry in their hearts. Vivid photos I saw in the German concentration camp, Dachau flash through my mind. How many more times will humans be so tremendously, horribly cruel?
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