If this upsets you skip this post. It was tough to see. Most of the pictures were not included.
How this happened, in the 1970s, is hard to understand. The Vietnam War in the early 70s and then next door, the S-21 and a total of 196 camps created to torture and kill, and then to send on to the Killing Fields in Cambodia's genocide. Some 3M died of execution, forced labors, starvation and diseases. The whole regime of Khmer Rouge only lasted 3 years, 8 months and 20 days from 4.17.75 to 1.6.79. In that time the city of Phnom Penh was literally emptied. The prisons remained to host those who could possibly object including intellects, writers, teachers, artists and anyone who was educated. The 'prison' we visited was a kid's school in the heart of the city. They just cleared out the desks and put in wood cells and metal bed frames to which they chained, tortured and executed people. The place was secret yet existing in plain site, but alas the city had been emptied. The make shift prison was called S-21. If people survived here, they went to the Killing Fields, where they were executed (or partially executed) and dumped in mass shallow graves. Women and children were not spared.
The Vietnamese came to end the Khmer Rouge ultimately. The fight between the Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam started in 1976 and continued throughout 1978 before year end. Radio Hanoi pushed Cambodians to defect to Vietnam to take up arms.
The sites at and of S-21 are heartbreaking. I will not post the images of skulls and torture beyond what is here. Young children, mothers, boys and men were taken, torn apart, tortured for confessions about a regime they had no part of, only to be killed. A picture of a historian who was busy creating the Vietnamese American war memorials and museum next door, and then came to Vietnam to create the S-21 museum only months (yes MONTHS) after it was discovered. To be clear the torture and killing was happening right next door and simply not long ago. It is harrowing. My apologies for the photo repeat which is hard to remove. Then again this beautiful woman with a baby by her side is worthy of our collective attention. Please read about this history.
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