Choeung Ek – The Killing Fields
By Tony on February 2, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Back in the 1980s, while I was studying at Georgetown University, I attended a lecture by Dr. Haing Ngor on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. Catapulted to fame for his Oscar-winning role in the “Killing Fields,” the entertainment media had wondered aloud at the time about how Ngor, a non-actor, had managed to win the ultimate acting award. In his lecture, Dr. Ngor revealed the answer to this puzzling question – he wasn’t acting.
Haing Ngor was a survivor of the Cambodian holocaust, a period of complete societal breakdown from 1975-1979 under the rule of the notorious psycho-ruler, Pol Pot. Often referred to as a genocide, this period of murderous cruelty which resulted in the killing of approximately 18 percent of Cambodia’s population, seems to merit a term of its own. Ngor’s first-hand descriptions of the atrocities he had witnessed during his imprisonment left Georgetown students and professors alike gasping in disbelief and horror. I clearly remember his graphic description of Khmer Rouge soldiers torturing prisoners in a room they had decorated with fetuses cut from women they had tortured to death. I remember feeling embarrassment as certain people jumped up and rushed out of the auditorium unable to sit through his lecture. Somehow, it seemed disrespectfully indulgent to run away from a survivor’s testimony. Isn’t it our obligation to confront and understand our history, to learn from tragedy, and prevent it from reoccurring?
Bones emerge from the “Killing Fields.”
For this reason, a visit to Choeung Ek, the real-life “Killing Fields” outside of Phnom Penh, is an absolute must on anyone’s Cambodia itinerary. As with Auschwitz or Dachau, a visit to Choeung Ek is uncomfortable and jolting. It is also important. A glimpse into one of history’s most horrific moments, it reminds visitors once again of humanity’s potential for cruelty and horror. It warns of the dangers of mob mentality and illustrates how those who perpetrate such crimes ultimately fall victim to the insanity they help create.
At first, Choeung Ek appears disturbingly benign, one fenced-off field with a simple, modern pagoda rising above the surrounding trees. As you enter, the reality of past horrors come to life. Peering out from the pagoda, the glare of more than 8000 skulls collected from the surrounding fields. Meticulously arranged on shelves according to sex and age, the simple pagoda is Choeung Ek’s memorial to the insanity of the Khmer Rouge and the extent of their crimes.
Moving into the interior of the oddly narrow memorial, visitors were jostling and squeezing through to view and photograph the remains. While it might seem inappropriate to photograph such a site, I noticed the focused expressions of each visitor composing pictures of the skulls. Rather than macabre fascination at such an explicit scene, the visitors wore the intensity of historical documentarians. I envisioned dozens of conversations in Dutch and Japanese and Spanish and Greek, travelers returning home to bear witness to one of history’s most hideous and yet relatively unknown crimes. Locals showed no discomfort with the photos and I suspect they would actively encourage visitors to share their tragic and under-told stories with the outside world.
Bones accumulated by the baby killing tree with mass grave pits in background
As with the concentration camps in Europe documenting the European holocaust, Cheung Ek does its best to lay out the political and cultural events that led to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. The small but effective interpretation center does its job well. But as with Auschwitz in Poland, Choeung Ek’s true narrative power lies in its visuals. The pits which once served as mass graves. The tree where Khmer Rouge soldiers would kill babies by beating them against the trunk. The bits of human bone emerging from the pits and paths all around.
Indeed, only half-way through a tour of Choeung Ek do visitors come to fully understand that they are actually walking on one enormous grave. For me that moment came well away from the roped-off mass graves and signed displays as I walked alone through the trees towards the back of the site. Walking along lost in thought, I happened to noticed a small piece of cloth embedded in the path. I bent down to inspect it and realized that it was a piece of clothing emerging from the hard-packed earth. Somehow, after all the graphic evidence: the skulls, the bone fragments, the death trees and the old Khmer Rouge photographs, that one piece of cloth felt devastatingly real. Was I was standing on someone who had been killed within my lifetime, a victim still buried in the “Killing Fields?” Touching the cloth, I recalled Haing Ngor’s description of his imprisonment, replayed scenes portrayed in the “Killing Fields” movie in my head. How bizarre that a piece of cloth could convey so much.
Piece of cloth revealed by time, evidence of past crimes
There are surely visitors who bypass Choeung Ek as they race by on their way to Angkor Wat or the beaches of Sihanoukville. Perhaps, they feel they simply don’t have the time to devote to such an unpleasant experience; perhaps, they don’t want to expose themselves or their families to the grotesque acts of an insane regime. But racing by such an important site, or worse, intentionally skipping it, seems as embarrassing, as disrespectfully indulgent as the people who walked out of Haing Ngor’s lecture. Visiting the “Killing Fields” and carrying away the experience to share it with the world is the obligation of everyone who visits Cambodia.
Topics: Cambodia | 1 Comment »
February 6th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Your description of this place captures the experience well.