This is not a place you look forward to visiting. You don’t want to go. You need to go.
This is a place you ask others whether it’s appropriate to take your children. You mentally and emotionally prepare your children to visit a place like this.
We visited a high school in a residential area of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was built in the early 60’s with a beautiful courtyard full of grass, exercise equipment, and fruit trees. The buildings are 3-4 stories tall with large ventilated classrooms. The rooms are full of natural light with cheerful tile floors in an orange and white pattern. I know this school was a place of love, laughter and learning.
In the early 1970s, the Khmer Rouge took control of this country. As part of the new regime philosophy, all of the cities were emptied, and the Khmer Rouge forced the city dwellers to leave work in the fields in the countryside. Unaccustomed to this type of work, many became sick and died. The new regime had little tolerance for intellectuals, professionals, Buddhist monks, and systematically persecuted or executed them. In all, approximately 3 million Cambodians lost their lives during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Students and teachers no longer filled the school. By 1975, the Khmer Rouge had repurposed the school and now referred to it as “S-21”. The outside world did not know about S-21. Many inside Cambodia did not know about S-21, the most infamous detention center in Cambodia. The classrooms on the upper floors were reconfigured into small holding cells. On the ground floor, the rooms were sealed to reduce airflow and to dampen the sounds of torture.
The tile floors are stained. Forty years later, standing next to the fruit trees, our family can feel the suffering of so many.
At any one time, 1000-2000 prisoners…men, women, and children…babies removed from the arms of their family members and murdered…starvation and death. Shockingly detailed records kept by the abusers about the prisoners: names, ages, professional quality pictures, names of family members, confessions (forced), execution orders. Over 17,000 people “processed.” A few dozen survived – a machinist, a painter – those with skills that those in charge needed.
An efficient and evil machine operated at S-21 for approximately 4 years and was discovered to exist when the Vietnamese forced the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in 1979. This place that the world did not know existed shocked the Vietnamese and Cambodian liberators. S-21 was left in the condition, for the most part, in which it was found and is now known as the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.
High School…S-21…Toul Sleng Genocide Museum
You must go and learn. Children and young adults. History is important. Recalling this history honors the memory of those who died at S-21.
Thank you
Thanks for your post on Cambodia. That might have been a place I would have passed. We are fine and getting used to our new abode. sounds like everyone is getting to see a once in a life time experience.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ (George Santayana)
History is important! Great home school (abroad) history lesson.
So true!
Important history to remember. Just like the Holocaust. Sad but true.
How did the kids handle it? What kind of questions did they have?
We are headed to Memphis this weekend and plan to visit the Civil Rights Museum. Definitely not as…..I can’t think of the words….as what you saw but hopefully it will plant some ideas on how things used to be. We cannot let history repeat itself in either of these situations.
They handled it well. Everyone was pretty somber both during and after seeing those images and hearing about the acts committed against the Cambodian people. Perhaps not surprisingly, the kids had the same kinds of questions that an adult would have: “How come nobody stopped Pol Pot (since it is apparent that he was evil)?”, “Why would he do that do his own people”, and “Why would the US gov’t continue to recognize (and thus support) the Khmer Rouge government even after it was defeated?”. They asked questions of themselves, like “what would I do if I were put in a situation like some of the prison staff or a prisoner?”. Not easy questions to answer, but really important to gaining some understanding of the history and of ourselves.
Thank you, Lori. This is such a great post. I’m glad it’s a genocide museum now. I’m so sorry this is part of our world, that it happened and is happening elsewhere right now. Some day, we will live in peace.
So sorry to learn of the atrocities people inflict upon each other. The world needs to learn about these horrible things. Hopefully someday we will all be able to live together in peace.