S-21

I'm torn between, among many other emotions right now, whether to post something now or wait till I've digested my experience and my reaction to the most horrifying experience of my life - S-21 Prison here in Phnom Penh.


My boss, Lt. Mike Morley and I arrived back here late this a.m. to our hotel, A-1 Hotel in Phnom Penh after wrapping up the Cambodia phase of our training mission last night on board USS Tortuga. My schedule since before departing Olympia kept me busy enough to literally remain oblivious to what day it is. Today, Tuesday, June 15th will serve as the waypoint in time for which everything on this trip is relative to.

No more incredible 4-star beach resort and disgust from the port politics and economic depression along the Cambodian coast at Sihanoukville. Today was my introduction to genocide at the S-21 prison.

Millions were tortured and held captive as they passed through this former school-turned-detention/slaughter house.

Human remains and blood stains are still on the floors underneath the actual beds and you can tour the facility at your own pace to take in things on your own. We managed to hit S-21 w/ only four other people I could see and we hardly saw them at that. It's a very lonely and desolate place that still wreaks of horror caused by ignorance and manipulation and exploitation.

Room after room - for the first few I was fascinated by the realism and matter-of-fact presentation of the facility. One bed in a large room with shutters and a (most likely blood-stained) tile floor. The blood is just one of the staining fluids there after people were left to die and eventually rot. As their bodies began to decompose, their fluids leaked through the beds - staining the tiles.

I know this because a photographer was tasked to shoot the rooms as the Vietnamese found them - with a person whose tortured body was most likely cross-legged and shackled to a dowel of re-bar attached to a bed. The photos are blown up and hang on the wall depicting the very bed, shackles and re-bar (and often ammunition container they were forced to use as a toilet) beside you. Nothing has been removed beside the human remains which are now buried in front of that particular building. There are at least ten large rooms like this. I lost count as the whole immensity and horror made me feel a sense of vertigo and terrifyingly euphoric.

I find it incredible to now personally know witnessing just the 30-year-old remnants of genocide triggers my coping mechanism - and that was in the first 15 minutes. But as one coping mechanism kicked in so did another - my conscious commitment to take this in as a service to not just the victims of S-21 and the Khmer Rouge, but everyone I know. No matter how gruesome and disturbing it was, I dug into that place where I choose to push myself forward.

I don't know why but these people were deliberately kept away from the general population. I assume it was because they could hypothetically spread knowledge to the others and therefore posed a real risk to the Khmer Rouge. 

The next building is another three-story building completely wrapped in barbed wire. It was put there after a woman successfully committed suicide from the third story. Mike told me that story and I felt a sense of respect for her - whose face is likely one of the faces defiantly staring into your eyes among the thousands of photos now filling that building and as if telling you, "we are dignified."

And they are dignified - hopefully by me. And that's why I chose to continue on through the much smaller individual chambers and cells. Most likely there were 12 to a room. Some were divided by wood and others clearly thrown together with brick and mortar. The windows obviously had bars layered with barbed wire and shutters to keep the light out - which they successfully did.

I don't know how many people lived and died in that place. Young, old, men, women, mothers with their new-borns in hand, soldiers, scholars, doctors, politicians - they were all murdered. Even the term murder and the basic idea we associate w/ murder would have been an easy way out for them.

Lastly, I deliberately avoided any kind of warning about what I wrote and the photos I shot. That's my way of using what these people taught me today. That's a part of my education someone (Meaghan at the Fish Tale) shared with me. It was enough to spark my interest and go there. It was enough to make me connect with the victims of S-21 and give them dignity somehow. Tricking you into reading and experiencing this in some way is a service to them and humanity. Come see this place and share the truth and horror humans can conjure up. After all, you and me, the Khmer Rouge and victims are all just people. Kind of makes you think doesn't it?

Please see more of the photos in this gallery - http://gallery.me.com/ghorst10#100195