Harrowing
I'm in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge regime took over the country in the mid 1970s, an innocent-looking school in the city was taken over as a prison and torture centre for anyone perceived to be enemies of the regime. They were kept here before being moved to the famous killing fields about 15km away.
The experience was very harrowing indeed because of the hundreds of pictures of people now dead, and it struck me how many of these people were children or teenagers. The classrooms had been carved up into tiny cells and wandering amongst these was very sinister. I feel it is important to understand defining moments in countries' histories so I am glad I went.
7 people of many thousands survived their experience here, because they had skills such as an ability to paint, that were valuable enough to keep. A handful of this group is still alive. As I was leaving the museum, a security guard hollered over to me that one of the survivors was there and beckoned me over as if to talk to him. It was a bit of a tricky one - anything I may have said to the survivor would have seemed completely inane, so I beat a hasty retreat, preferring to chance my luck getting through the sea of tuk-tuk drivers outside the gates, eager for business.
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