Cambodia
Through Harold’s Lens:
1975-79
WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT!
Please start the music first, as you are enjoying the images and words.
You will receive the full sensual experience of this story.
Pol Pot Regime
Khmer Rouge
Terror
Killing fields
3,000,000 people slaughtered!
Society
Confiscated: private property
Burned: homes to the ground
Banned: family relationships
Separated: children from parents
Relocated: different parts of Cambodia
Relocated: collective farms, forced labor
Banned: personal utensils
Eliminated: privacy, sexual relations
Death: family members communicating
Banned: religion, Buddhist temples destroyed
Murdered: 60,000 monks
Abolished: freedom to travel
Abolished: postal service, telephone service
Closed: hospitals, factories
Closed: schools, books burned
Closed: banks, money burned
Destroyed: bank records, claims to funds
Isolated: Cambodia from foreign countries.
Family
Grandmother, Grandfather
Mother, Father
Daughter, Son
Infant.
Long marches: days through countryside
Died: children, elderly, sick
Work: 12 hours non-stop, no rest, no food,
no medicine, no medical services
Death: disease, illness
Death: exhaustion, overwork
Death: starvation
Murdered: offenders
Murdered: intellectuals, city-dwellers
Murdered: teachers, minorities
Murdered: merchants, suspected traitors
Murdered: practicing religion
Raped: females
Torture: children taught methods with animals
Torture: children carried out torture, executions.
Torture
Mass graves: 20,000, 1,386,734 victims
Torture centre: 16,000 sent to death
Secret prison: S-21.14,000 prisoners, 12 survived
Small cells: shackled to walls & concrete floor
Large cells: collectively shackled to long iron bars
Food: human feces
Water: human urine
Torture: sliced with knives
Torture: electric shocks, searing hot metal
Torture: suffocation in plastic bags
Torture: fingernails pulled out, alcohol poured on wounds
Torture: alive, bled to death
Torture: alive, sliced open, organs removed, no anesthetic
Torture: alive, skinned
Torture: heads held under water
Execution: pickaxes, spades, sharpened bamboo sticks, machetes
Execution: heads of children, infants bashed against trees.
30 years later
Widows: tens of thousands
Orphans: tens of thousands
Living: severe traumatization
Pol Pot Regime
Khmer Rouge
Terror
Killing fields
3,000,000 people slaughtered!
May our world never forget this horrific event.
Documentation Center of Cambodia
Spoofy, deep, and meaningful … good job Sir.. 🙂
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I played the music video attached while reading, it made me get the real meaning of your words, I could imagine all that happened there in Cambodia.. what can we say, do or protest against? politics, religion, oppression… why? why is all that happening to thousands but millions of innocent families around the world….???!!
maybe you should visit Palestine soon and write some poems, it’s worth it.
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Ahmed, I do not have any answers to your questions. I do not know why mankind keeps doing this killing, over, and over, and over. Never learns!
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Civilisation: the failed experiment. You said it all Harold – I have no words to add to this sad reminder of what people do to each other. Sad. So, so, so sad…
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It is sick Amos. I do not understand the thinking behind these types of horrific events. Is it greed? Hate? Power? Maybe all of the above and more.
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Three letter word: ego. The you’re-a-lesser-being syndrome. It”s so wrong and so common…
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Powerful and a reminder of all the atrocities that have happened and continue to happen around the world. Very sad.
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I agree thirdeyemom. The people of the world should never forget, sweep under the rug or deny these events never happened. That is why I tried to bring the Khemer Rouge down to a one-person level in my previous post, “My Life In A Hole”. Streets Of Our World., on Through Harold’s Lens: http://throughharoldslens.com/2013/08/14/life-destroyed-european-tour/
Also the Nazi terrors and huge loss of life in the European Theatre of World War II in a previous post of mine, “Life Destroyed”. European Tour. on Through Harold’s Lens: http://throughharoldslens.com/2013/08/14/life-destroyed-european-tour/
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These are brilliant posts Harold. When did you go to Cambodia? I would love to go there.
Your photography and poetry is beautiful. The world needs to know and never forget. Just hope someday we can learn from it but not all man is good and I don’t think that will ever change, sadly.
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I was in Cambodia in 2008, thirdeyemom. Thank you for your nice comments on a horrific topic. I wanted my posts as horrific, soul searching and heart wrenching as I could make it as I felt that this must have been what those years were like for the Cambodian people. I also forwarded the Links to both Posts: http://throughharoldslens.com/2014/01/08/my-life-in-a-hole-streets-of-our-world/
and
http://throughharoldslens.com/2014/01/18/horrific-streets-of-our-world/
to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.
http://www.dccam.org. I told them that they may use these Posts on Through Harold’s Lens anyway they wanted, and that I did not expect any compensation.
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Yes I remember these posts. The little girl just tears my heart apart. These are amazing pieces. I hope to someday make it to Cambodia too.
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You have summarised a truly horrendous period in Cambodia’s history in a brief but graphic set of words which leave the reader under no illusion as to what the people went through and are still trying to come to terms with. We visited Cambodia five years ago and it was very evident in the people and their search to make some kind of reason out of it.
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Irene, I too could see the evidence and residue of the years of terror and death in the eyes of the beautiful Cambodian people. I tried to bring it down to a one-person level in my previous post on Through Harold’s Lens: “My Life In A Hole”. Streets Of Our World. http://throughharoldslens.com/2014/01/08/my-life-in-a-hole-streets-of-our-world/
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Yes that post is the reason I followed you. You put the situation in a way that everyone can surely empathise with. Thank you
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One of history’s most horrific of times.
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Angeline M, one of the worst periods in recorded human history.
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I can’t press like on this but you have said and captured it perfectly. Not forgetting the terror those people had to go through.
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Understand Ute. I’m about to post it on my Facebook page. It would be hard for me to press “Like” too. It was one hell of a period of terror.
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Moving thank you!
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Thank you mjh333. Those events of 1975-79 moved me as a walked through the Cambodian Memorials.
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Powerful. Worthy returning to and not forgetting these incredibly sad moments in the history of the world. You put it in strong and succinct words, thanks Harold.
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Thank you Dalo.To me. it’s a solid punch in the guts.
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