Every Family Had to Collect Five Skulls
Posted date : 29-03-2010
Source : Youth For Peace
Number of Visitors : 831 
Wat Koh Koa known as Wat Ta Loas Chass
Many bones were found in rice fields and inside Wat Koh Keo pagoda known as Wat Ta Loas Chass, which was used as a hospital during the Pol Pot regime. After the collapse of the regime the villagers needed the land for farming so they tried to remove all the bones from their rice paddies. A 54-year-old resident in Ta Loas Chass commune, Mrs. Chum Va said that in 1979 the bones were scattered over the rice fields and the small hills behind the pagoda.
Son Sarom, a 40 year-old resident in Ta Loas Chass village, said, “in the beginnings, there were many bones scattered across the rice fields, but the villagers were not interested in collecting all the bones so my father, who was the Buddhist layman in this pagoda, set a plan for each family to collect five skulls and other bones. We collected only the big parts of a skeleton, such as skulls and limbs”.
“In a big mound of about 50 square meters, there were around 50 pits. Within each about 20 victims were found,” said Doung Roeup, a 47-year-old resident in Ta Laos Chass village. “The local authority told us to collect and keep the bones, and then we built a wooden hut to pile up them in 1983 under a banyan tree in Wat Ta Loas Chass pagoda. In 1990s the bones were moved to be kept in a stupa which was paid by Mrs. Shouk Rork. She lived abroad.”
The stupa slowly fell apart due to poor construction, but was rebuilt again in 2008 by Shouk Rork. According to Chum Va, during Pol Pot’s time shouk Rork’s husband and relatives were not killed at the site. They may have been killed in other places, but Ta Loas Chass was her home village where her husband used to be the commune chief before the dark regime.
Doung Roeup said people whose relatives died at this site and local villagers come and perform ceremonies every year. Students come and learn of the Khmer Rouge history during the memorial ceremonies such as May-20th Day or January-7th Day.
Son Sarom said Shouk Rork and villagers keep the bones for the next generation to see and know the Khmer Rouge regime, so that they could prevent such regime from happening again. “It was very hard. I would kill myself if such regime happens again. We planted crops, but we would have been killed if the Khmer Rouge had found us picking them up. From the tamarind tree, I witnessed Khmer Rouge killing people. I saw the palms of the victims being jabbed and led in a line to this burial site. They were beaten with a wooden stick”, Son Sarom added.
Location: Wat Chass village, Ta Loas commune, Moung Russey district, Battambang province
Distance: 290 kilomters northwest of Phnom Penh
Victims: 500 to 600 (source: DC-Cam)
Extracted from:
-Diary 2010, Stories from the Ground “Every Family Had to Collect Five Skulls”.
