The Fields of Death


Southeast Asia is not only a region of beach tourism and fun holidays, but also many different countries with its diverse history and sights. The terrible events during the Khmer Rouge dictate of the closed country of Cambodia will forever remain in the memory of the descendants. One of the preserved tragic places of mass burial of the victims of the regime is the memorial field of death of "Choeng Eck".

A bit of history

In the period from 1975 to 1979 during the reign of the dictator-sadist Pol Pot was brutally tortured, killed and buried a huge number of people. With a total population of 7 million people, from one and a half to three million were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. As for the exact calculation of the death toll, there are still heated debates.

Supporters of the dictate regime hid the burial places of their victims, since all the fields of death were discovered much later, and some in general by accident. All those executed were taken out and buried in trenches and mass graves, later called "fields of death". And the most famous of them is Choeng Eck.

History of the formation of fields of death

The policy of the regime was not only the physical destruction of traces of the previous government (and this is the ruling elite, soldiers and officials and their relatives), but also anyone who could have anything to do with it. The future prisoner was warned, and after he was taken to "re-education" and "retraining", which always ended in the death of the prisoner. From people in all ways, they knocked out confessions of crimes, revolutionary thoughts, connections with the CIA or the KGB. Then confessors were sent to Tuol Sleng , where torture continued and an imminent execution was carried out.

The horror of the execution was that the "Khmer Rouge" saved ammunition, and those sentenced to death were literally destroyed by all improvised means. Executed not all, many people died of starvation and exhaustion in prisons, from torture and wounds, intestinal infections. There were so many dead bodies that they were taken out weekly in trucks and buried in deep pits where they would have to. Such found mass graves are called "fields of death".

The field of death of "Choeng E" today

At the place of the tragic burial, a Buddhist memorial and a temple were built in memory of all the victims. The transparent walls of the temple are filled with several thousand skulls found in common graves. The scale of the tragedy is recognized as the genocide of the people of Cambodia. There was even filmed the film "The Fields of Death" about the fate of Cambodian journalist Dita Prana, who got into the camp, but managed to escape from there. Also in the episodes, the death field appears in the famous film "Rambo IV".

How to visit Choeng Eck?

You can reach the field of death only by taxi, the burial is located 15 km from the capital of Phnom Penh, the road will take you about half an hour. The museum complex is open daily from 8am to 5pm. Groups of tourists are offered a free viewing of a 20-minute documentary. Inside the building, photography is prohibited. On the territory of the "field" are both already discovered common graves, and untouched, about one-third of the total.

A ticket to visit the Choeng Eck Memorial Museum costs € 2, and for € 5, in addition to the ticket, you will receive a small player and headphones with which you can listen to the excursion program and documentary information. But there is no record in Russian.