Choeung Ek

Thousands of woven bracelets and charms hang from the fences around the excavated mass graves.

The lake at the back of Choeung Ek, which covers unexcavated mass graves.

A butterfly, dying on the dike of the lake.

The skulls.  Layers and layers of skulls rising upwards.

The Killing Fields. That is what they are called.

Eight kilometers from the center of Phenom Penh, less from Tuol Sleng prison, is Choeung Ek. This place of execution and mass graves is the main memorial to the victims of the genocidal fury of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge. From 1975 until 1979, trucks arrived at night, bearing the tortured prisoners of Tuol Sleng prisoners to their doom. No one escaped. Most of the prisoners were killed the night they arrived. They were blindfolded and bound, led to the edge of pits, forced to kneel, and then they were bludgeoned to death. The Khmer Rouge could not waste precious bullets. Some of these victims had their throats cut with the sharp edges of sugar palm branches. Many of the dead were then beheaded.

Approximately 20,000 men, women and children were executed here. Babies were murdered here. The exact number of dead will never be known. There are still mass graves which the Cambodian people have decided not to excavate. This is just one of hundreds of killing fields scattered across this country.

Thousands and thousands of skulls have been carefully excavated, cleaned, sorted, and then stacked level upon level in a memorial stupa. This glass sided stupa, this tower of skulls, is the centerpiece of Cambodia's official effort to remember their dead citizens.

I walked about this quiet place, bathed in the morning sun, under a brilliant blue sky. I wore an audio device which described the site and what took place here. In calm, deliberate voices, I heard the stories of Cambodian people who survived the Khmer Rouge, stories of the dead, and even the voices of executioners who killed their fellow Cambodians.

The story at Choeung Ek is not complete. The dead here do not rest peacefully. Every rainy season, more bones are forced out of the earth. Every year, the caretakers of this site collect the bones, teeth and skulls that are pushed out of the earth.

At the memorial stupa, the skulls rise, layer upon layer, rising up and up and up. I made merit in front of the stupa, with flowers and incense. I made merit with no prayer possible, no mantra sufficient, no thought worthy of the immensity of this insanity of death. It was all there was to do, and it was as nothing.