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| The Gates of Choeung Ek** |
Our last sightseeing stop with our friends in Phnom Penh was
the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, informally known as the Killing Fields. This trip was difficult, not physically, but
emotionally. I was ambivalent about bringing Alexa, and I considered staying at
home with her because I wasn’t certain what she would see there. However,
numerous online reviews and a friend who had been there personally with small
children reassured me: the site would not be visually disturbing to a child
young enough not to recognize human bones, and as long as we prevented Alexa
from running around and playing, her presence would not disrupt others’
experience there or be viewed as disrespectful. Jeff and I agreed that we would
take Alexa and hope she slept through the experience. If she didn’t sleep, she
would be kept far enough away from the two locations displaying human remains
that even an older child would not recognize what was being displayed. All information
was imparted via headphones on the self-paced tour, so she would not hear
anything that could be disturbing to her, either.
And there was plenty to hear that was very disturbing. On
this blog, I will share some of that information, and a picture or two that
contain human remains. If you do not wish to be exposed to that information or
those images, please don’t read any more of this post. And if you happen to be under the age of 15, please don't read it unless your parent has read it and has told you that it's okay.
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| The Memorial Stupak** |
We arrived at Choeung Ek early in the afternoon. I was
struck immediately by the somber, quiet atmosphere that permeated the location.
Signs admonished people not to speak loudly, and everyone complied. Most who
spoke at all did so barely above a whisper. Everyone wore headphones and
listened quietly as the narrator explained in their own language what happened
in this peaceful—beautiful, even—setting.
The narrator told how the victims arrived from Tuol Sleng
prison, how they had been tortured already and were brought to Choeung Ek
specifically to die. Music was played over loudspeakers so that nearby citizens
would not hear the screams; chemicals were used to mask the smell. Meticulous
records were kept to ensure that no prisoners had escaped en route. Some
victims were forced to sign the paperwork themselves, in effect signing their
own death warrants. Entire families were killed, including the youngest
infants, so that no one would grow up to seek revenge. Bullets were expensive,
so they were not used at Choeung Ek, against such weakened and “easy” targets.
Instead, machetes were used; sharp ridges from the branches of a local tree
were used as knives; hoes and other innocuous tools were used as bludgeons.
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| The Killing Tree** |
The most difficult part of the tour for me was a tree. This
tree was located next to a mass grave in which the bodies of women and children
had been found. When the site was discovered, the tree was stained red, and no
one understood why until the bodies were examined. Apparently a favorite way to
kill infants was to hold them by their legs and bash their heads into the trunk
of this tree, now known as the Killing Tree. I had heard this information
before, but standing there, seeing the tree in front of me and the mass grave
beside it; knowing that some of the victims had stood where I stood; that
mothers had held their babies right there where I was holding Alexa, waiting
for their babies to be taken from them; that women right there had been forced
to watch as their babies were murdered … the grief gave way to rage, and I
started thinking of what I would do if someone ever tried to harm Alexa—and then
it struck me. Those mothers, had they and their infants been alive on this day,
would have felt the same as I felt. And had I been there, in their positions,
with Alexa, on one of those horror-filled days, I would have felt the same as
they did: desperate, hopeless, and unable to do anything to stop what was about
to happen. Had I been born a generation ago, in a country across the world from
my own, it could have been my baby who was murdered before my eyes, right
before I was murdered, too. And had I been born in my own time but in a
different location, I could have been the baby whose skull was shattered
against that tree. My own housekeeper was a toddler and preschooler during
those years—had someone acted on a grudge against her family, had her parents
not remained under the radar during those years, it could have been her. This
is not ancient history. This is yesterday.
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| Mass grave in the distance |
I hugged Alexa closer to me and turned away from that
terrible tree. The tears were welling up in my eyes as I thought about being
helpless to save her. Luckily, the moment was interrupted by another tourist
who, as so many Asians seem to do, took an undue interest in Alexa. (I’m not
being racist here; in all of the sites we visited, the only tourists who felt
free to take pictures of my daughter, approach her without invitation, speak to
her while ignoring me, and even try to take her from me without ever
acknowledging my existence, the only tourists who did these things were Asian.
Apparently it’s a cultural thing, viewed as perfectly acceptable to them, and
only we westerners are so individualistic as to take offense or view it as
threatening when strangers approach our children.) This particular woman was
concerned because Alexa’s face was red*. Although I could not understand her
words, her gestures and tone of voice clearly indicated her disapproval, and this
disapproval combined with her invasion of my personal space—something else that
seems to be characteristic of many Asian tourists but not of the Cambodians
with whom I’ve interacted—felt threatening to me, although I’m certain she didn’t
mean it that way. But I was not in the mood for it at that moment. I hugged
Alexa protectively against my chest and glared at the woman, extending the
glare to another woman who stopped beside her and joined in. Soon, three or
four women surrounded me on three sides, all too close for my comfort. I glared
balefully at each of them in turn and turned away. They got the hint and left
me alone, although they continued watching and following from a distance, pointing at Alexa and making concerned noises.
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| Skulls in the Memorial Stupak** |
Later, as I sat on a bench with Alexa, waiting for Jeff to
finish inside the memorial stupak (which displayed hundreds of bones, so there
was no way I was taking Alexa in), the women walked by and smiled and waved at
Alexa. This time I felt much more relaxed, and Alexa encouraged them by smiling
and playing peek-a-boo around my arm. They also did not approach me, did not
make unhappy-sounding noises in my direction, and did not gesture toward Alexa’s
still-pink face. Therefore I did not retreat from them.
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| Memorial Stupak** |
Instead, my friend came
up and said to Alexa, “How is it that you can make people smile even here?” I
hugged her close again, realizing the truth: Alexa’s presence made the horror
of the place more real to me, but for everyone else who saw her, she was a ray
of light in the darkness. Her beautiful innocence provides hope that tomorrow
will not hold the horrors of yesterday.
*Alexa was not sunburned. I don’t recall if she was wearing
a hat at the time, but I know she was in the shade, and whenever she’d been in
the sun that day, she wore a hat. She, like her mother, gets very red in the
face when she gets hot. We’d been outside in the heat most of the day and both
of us were bright pink for most of the day and for quite a while after we came
indoors.
**All but one of the pictures in this post were taken by a friend. I took a few pictures at Choeung Ek, but not many. These are much better and
contain some images that I didn’t think to capture, couldn’t bring myself to
memorialize in that moment, or didn’t even see, as we were keeping Alexa away
from those sights. The pictures are shown here with permission.
