Faces of Cambodia

It’s said that traveling opens your eyes and in turn your mind. I'm currently in Phnom Phen Camobodia and today, my mind and my heart were forever touched with stories I will never forget. 

The very year I came into this world marked the end of the horrific genocide in Cambodia. An atrocity I never even knew existed. How is it possible that with all my years of private school education, a bachelor’s degree, a graduate and post-graduate degree I’d never even heard of the Cambodian genocide until this trip? Is it my lack of interest in foreign politics, a failure of the U.S. education system, or the byproduct of ethnocentrism and political complacency?

Whatever the cause, I sit here today, stunned, ashamed and horrified at what happened to the Cambodian people less than 40 years ago. In an attempt to rectify my ignorance and perhaps process some of my experience I’d like to tell the stories of four Cambodians I met today. 

Meet Ritz. Yep, you got it, just like the crackers, or for those of you high rollers, Ritz as in Carlton. He is a 46 years old tour guide at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. I bumped into into Ritz during my clumsy attempt to make sense of the palace on my own. Ritz was a fantastic guide who expertly shared his vast knowledge of Cambodian history and culture. In so doing he told me about his own heartbreaking experience under the hands of the Khmer Regime.

Ritz telling me his story

At age 7 the Khmer Region murdered his father for being too educated. His mother was torn from her family and forced to do “women’s work” in a labor camp. His three brothers and sisters, left without caretakers and too young to fend for themselves, died of starvation. Ritz on the other hand learned to survive by fishing and eating grubs and insects. Some nights he supplemented by stealing bread from his neighbors. He quickly learned to eat quietly because he would be shot if they discovered him.

He was ordered to spend up to 16 hours a day turning cow dung into fertilizer with the other children his age. Though his mother was in the same labor camp they weren’t allowed to see each other. He described himself as “a prisoner without a cell in my own land.” If he ever left his camp he’d be executed. One night Ritz wandered out of camp and lost his way back. He feared for his life as waited for nightfall. “But I am lucky, I saw a group of laborers from my camp walking home and I followed behind them.”

On January 6, 1979 he awoke to an abandoned camp. All the Pol Pot soldiers fled in fear of the Vietnamese. His mother, who’d secretly been following his movements, ran to find him and together they escaped into the jungle to meet the Vietnamese military. He counted himself as “lucky” once again. “The Vietnamese didn’t kill us. They wanted to gain our favor so they brought us back to Phnom Penh.” 

I’m amazed at the ease with which Ritz told me his story. He just smiled as he answered my embarrassingly ignorant questions about the war. A story, indirectly I as an American, took part in and yet knew nothing about. Despite all the suffering and death he witnessed, not to mention the starvation of his brothers and sisters and the murder of his father he still somehow considers himself “very lucky”. Ritz is resilience incarnate. 

Next I’d like you to meet Bou Meng. I met Bou while visiting the Khmer Rouge Genocide Museum. He is one of only two living survivors of the most barbaric prison known as S-21, under Pol Pot's reign. Out of the 16,000 people who were mercilessly tortured and brutally dehumanized at S-21 only 14 lived to tell their story.

He and his 28 year-old wife were arrested from their village and brought to the prison on the same day. Bou Meng attributes his survival to his ability to paint. His wife was murdered in the killing fields, but he was kept alive to paint pictures of Pol Pot.

The prison, formerly an elementary school housed it's captors in the old classrooms. The first floor had tiny cell blocks for political prisoners or those who despite pledging allegiance to the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot imprisoned for suspected treason. The next two floors held bodies chained and shackled by their feet and legs four rows deep. All light was blocked out of the tiny classrooms and they were forced to relieve themselves in eroding metal boxes. Bou Meng was kept in a tiny cell, nearly naked, shackled to the cement floor.

Prisoners were fed once a day about 3 spoonful’s of rice water. It was so little one prisoner said he only needed to defecate once in 3 months. Those prisoners who escaped death from starvation and illness were subject to barbaric torturing. Once Pol Pot got the information he needed all were "reassigned" to be murdered in the killing fields. Here the were neatly lined up, shackled together in a row overlooking their soon to be mass grave and bludgeoned to death in order to save bullets.

 

Schoolyard turned horrific prison camp

Box for relieving bowels

As I walked amongst the walls that witnessed the incomprehensible suffering of so many souls, my entire spirit ached. It was as if I could feel the weight of their souls pressing down on me. You can still see bloodstains on the tile floors and handprints on the ceilings. I stared into the eyes of hundreds of portraits taken of men, women and children on the day of their capture. I forced myself to look at the pictures of  emaciated bodies chained to metal mattresses and others of babies being thrown in the air as their captors used them for target practice

 

Portraits of the prisoners displayed in the class rooms they were held

The atrocities housed within the schoolyard gates are more than a soul can bear.  Outside there is an old swing set which was transformed into three gallows where prisoners suffocated as they were lowered face first into vats of excrement. Every room is covered with countless post-mortem photos of torture victims, the details of which I can’t bear to record. The last classroom contains hundreds of human skulls found surrounding the prison walls. When I thought my heart couldn’t stand to see more my gaze fell onto a glass trunk. I could hardly breath when I realized it was filled to the brim with the femurs of murdered infants.

 

Bou Meng's tiny cell

I also met Chum Mey inside the memorial gates. He is one of the 2 living survivors of S-21. Chum was selling his memoir and raising money for victims of the war. As I shyly approached he welcomed me with a beaming smile and began speaking to me in Cambodian. He motioned to his right side and a translator explained Chum lost his part of his vision and hearing when the guards poured battery acid on his face. He showed me his toenails all of which looked gnarled and green. Each one was pulled from its base in order to get a forced confession. He asked me if I’d pose for a photo with him. I was astounded by the irony that such a great man would want a photo with me. My entire body went weak as I walked away, never have I been in the presence of such a soul.

Next I met my guide around the memorial. She is a beautiful Cambodian woman whose name I won’t disgrace by trying to spell. She was 17 years old when the Khmer Regime murdered her parents. She was separated from her siblings and forced to work up to 22 hours a day in the farms. She described being so hungry at night her stomach pains kept her awake. While telling her story she rolled up her pant leg and revealed a nasty scar twisting around her leg. Here she explained, she was beaten with a rod for collapsing under exhaustion in the fields.

In the 1980's she worked up the courage to visit the area her parents were killed. There she came face to face with the man who murdered them. She asked if he'd show her their grave. He told her he'd do it for $200 USD. Can you imagine? The man who murdered her parents now wanted to make a profit off taking their daughter on a 'tour of their graves'. Her brother was so desperate to find closure he decided to pay the man. I have no words for this level of depravity. 

I cannot possibly pretend that I’m adept at drawing a picture of the horror I witnessed. Nor can I  begin to do justice in the telling the stories of these four beautiful souls. I’ve never in my life been so humbled, so horrified, so ashamed and so inspired by humanity in the same moment. It is my hope that as you read this you too can help their stories live on. How can we learn from the sins of our past if we don’t admit we have any?

The leaders of this genocide were every bit as human as we are. We too are capable of such extreme evil and such extreme tenacity. Our spirits equally house the same capacity for astounding resilience and compassion as they do for profound evil. The suffering and pain of my sisters is equally mine to bear. The lessons I learned today and the souls of those who suffered so greatly will forever be etched on my heart, and for this, I am thankful and like so many of them I too consider myself "lucky".