Returning and Remembering (3/25/08)

     In January of 2003 we came to Cambodia with Dr. Eunice Irwin and a group of students as part of the requirements for a class we were taking called 'The Church Abroad'.  The trip was quite formative for us, as it was during these two weeks we spent in Cambodia that we became acquainted with CAMA Services, and in turn ended up on the track we are on now.

     Part of our trip included seeing cultural sights, especially those having to do with the tumultuous recent history surrounding Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  As you may know, during the Khmer Rouge reign, between 2 and 3 million Cambodians were savagely and routinely murdered.

     During this trip we made a trip to a place known as Toul Sleng (also known as S-21).  Before Pol Pot, Toul Sleng was a school here in Phnom Penh.  However, during Pol Pot's time it was transformed into a prison and place of toture and murder.  When people were brought to S-21 to be interrogated their 'biographies' were taken along with their pictures so that the Khmer Rouge would know exactly who had been killed in that place.  The 'mug shots' of those who died in the torture cells at Toul Sleng fill several rooms that you can walk through as part of 'museum'.

      Chris and I were especially struck by one picture in particular, and it is one that we have never forgotten, almost as if its been burned into our minds.  This picture is of a woman, possibly in her 30's holding her  young baby (I would guess maybe 5-6 months old).  The most sobering part for us was the date on this particular picture, 1978.  For the two of us, the reality hit that this picture could have been our own mothers, cradling us in their arms before both of us were cruelly executed.  For us, being born in the United States, and not in Cambodia meant life, and not death!  We were babies during this horrible time in history for Cambodia, and had we not had to study the history of Cambodia for this class, we would have never known of all the atrocities that happened here.

Today, 5 years after our first visit to Toul Sleng we returned with a CAMA Services friend who was visiting Cambodia for the first time.  Chris and I again stood in front of the picture of this woman and her baby...but this time we were holding our own child in our arms...

Cambodia's history is one that must be remembered, it must be learned from.  I am struck by the fact that RIGHT NOW there are places in the world where prisons like Toul Sleng are in operation, where genocide is occurring and adults and children are being killed every single day.  We must remember history, and we must embrace the truth of what is happening around the world today and make an effort to do something about it.