A picture of seven of the eight known survivors. Most of them survived by having skills that that Khmer Rouge needed:
A picture taken after the Vietnamese Army invasion in 1979 showing the four surviving children:
At intake, the Khmer Rouge took pictures of every single individual coming in and recorded their name. The names and pictures became separated in some cases and so there are thousands of individuals whom are only known by their pictures. This board represents one of many displays in the prison.
There was no name attached to this young man. Judging the time period, he was maybe 10 years older or less than that in comparison with me at that time. His shirt...that is a shirt that any young pre-teen or teenager might have worn in those years. For all I know, given another reality, that could have been me.
I have been to many places in my years, including places where terrible things had happened. Never in my life have a been to a place where the very walls of the building seeped evil.
In some ways I think it's very brave of the Cambodians to preserve this for the public. I suspect there's a sense of "never forget" to it. Yet over the past couple of decades I've seen how easy it is for people to rationalize and forget.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, this is - in a horrible way - the inheritance of a generation. It is likely fair to say at this point that almost no living Cambodian was not impacted by this directly or by some family member, it being a relatively small country and almost 25% of the population having been killed. I think in some ways this is a means for them to get some aspect of closure, to confront the evil that happened there rather than - to your point - to forget it.
DeleteI wish Cambodia were closer to the West. People need to experience this. Not having been to Auschwitz I cannot fully compare the two - if Auschwitz is the same, then more people should go there as well.
Pol Pot was a fairly common name in my youth and I'm pretty sure outside of this blog, I haven't seen or heard it in nearly 40 years. Without these sorts of memorials, he would be lost completely.
ReplyDeleteEd, me either - although not a total surprise, as Pol Pot died in 1998 and the Khmer Rouge effectively disappeared in 1999 with the remnants being absorbed back into the Cambodian Army. Outside of historians at this point, it is something a great many people (outside of Cambodia) would like to forget.
DeletePerhaps another reason the Cambodian people remember is because they have to: they had to reintegrate as a nation and there are currently citizens, likely the end of our Baby Boomer generation, who were members of the Khmer Rouge. Without confronting the fact that members of their own society killed members of their own society, reintegration might not be possible.
Eight survivors.....eight......from that the hell on earth. Even with evidence preserved like this there will be idiots denying what happened, look at the Holocaust deniers TB.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, on the InterWeb they point out contingently that there might have been more survivors, but in some cases those may have been re-arrested and executed or simply disappeared (a wise idea, given the time).
DeleteYes, there will be idiots denying this too.
There are a lot of things I can manage to have patience with, but Holocaust Deniers and the often accompanying anti-Semitism are not two of them. The fact it has becoming much more prevalent of late is, while not as shocking to me as it should be given the state of the world, rather depressing.
This made me cry. This was my generation.
ReplyDeleteAnon - I am truly sorry if this brought you grief as that was not the intention.
DeleteBut it is sad - and completely 100% inflicted by humans on other humans, humans that were of the same stock and culture as the ones they killed. If we are not sad, we become as bad as those who perpetuated or supported these things.