Phnom Penh

I knew very little about Cambodia when I travelled there in 2011 and knew even less when it came to the atrocities that happened there in the 1970s. When deciding to travel through Cambodia I didn’t realise what I would learn and see there. Looking at my trip it was one of the most educational visits I have ever made.

What was most surprising was how recently the events had occurred. We often talk about the Holocaust and World War II, many people are educated in that subject. People know little about the Khmer Rouge and the genocide in Cambodia which had happened only 40 years ago.

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge under the reign of Pol Pot moved into Phnom Penh. They told the residents that they knew the Vietnamese were on their way, which was a lie, and they should evacuate the city, leaving them to seize power. Once they were in control they began imprisoning people they considered to be intellectual and a threat, along with anyone else they felt like.

The Khmer Rouge took over a school and then turned it into a prison where they tortured the people who were held there. You can now visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum as a tourist attraction where almost everything has been left as it was found by the Vietnamese in 1979. Barbed wire covers the windows and plaques of the survivors are displayed throughout the school grounds which has now become a museum.

Out of the estimated 17,000 people who where held in prison only 12 were found alive when the Vietnamese arrived in 1979. Out of those 12 only two are thought to be alive today. Prisoners were interrogated and executed in the prison, many were buried on site until there was no more room.  Then prisoners were taken out of Phnom Penh to The Killing Fields were they were executed and buried in mass graves.