The tree in which speakers were hung, and loud music was played so as for it to sound as if it were a big meeting or event going on in the fields…when in actual facts the ladies voice was covering the heart wrenching screams of the victims.
The people that maintain this land have the job of collecting any clothes, cloth, bones or parts that surface every 2-3 months, and here is a collection of the things they still keep unravelling.
The children and women section was the hardest thing to listen too. Babies heads were beaten up against this tree, until they were dead and then thrown int the pit. They generally would kill entire families so there was no one to seek revenge or to rat this place and themselves out.
This was a really intense section of the audio guide, where all the survivors told their stories of the Khmer Rouge and trying to take in the entire Khmer Rouge ordeal, Cambodian’s killing Cambodia’s to have a “pure” society. And the horrific extent these people went to. (And then my camera died…so the next photos above are not mine)
“Bone and teeth fragments still come up during flooding and have to be regularly collected”… Well I’m glad it didn’t rain whilst we were there.
One of many mass graves amongst the fields where bodies were thrown and buried on top of each other, all lined with hundreds of bracelets. Many temples give you these saying they have been blessed by Buddha, and so we assumed this was the reason their were hundreds hung.
This was the area where the chemicals used to both hide the stench of the dead bodies, or to use on people who were being buried alive (bullets were scarce, so many other inhumane methods were adopted). The thorns of these trees were one of the inhuman ways they would exemplify the suffering.
Don't let your dreams be dreams 