The Killing Feilds
As I looked through the doorway at the sea of scared, lonely,hurting faces; my heart hurt. You know the feeling; your chest contracts, your breathing slows, and a physical ache can be felt… right in the middle of your left lung.I didn’t even know these people, and yet their portraits moved me in a way I can’t explain.
These were real people I was looking at, some were doctors, teachers, pastors, even young teenagers. I was seeing them at their most vulnerable, for they knew they would face many months of torture before being allowed to die. Imagine being in such a place where death was considered a reward. And what was their crime? Being Educated. For this reason alone they were tortures, and made to watch their families die…women and children…all because they believed in brighter future.
During the years of 1975-1978 10,509 prisoners (not including the countless children) were killed at prison S-21, which was formerly a high school. A place which once used to inspire was now being used to destroy. Where there once was hope, there is now grief. In the 3 1/2 years Cambodia was under the communist rule of Pol Pot it is estimated 2 million people were killed (almost 1/3 of the population). There I was standing in a building where just 3 decades earlier thousands had died.
And so, as the reality of the injustice hit me, I walked through the door…making sure to look at each and every face. These people deserved to be remembered, they gave thier lives so that future generation could be free. “Greater love has no man than this; that he would lay down his life for the sake of another”
“Lest we forget”
