All Windows and Doors Were Closed
Posted date : 09-04-2010
Source : Youth For Peace
Number of Visitors : 767 
Kampong Tralach Memorial
The annual May 20 ceremony, called Anger Day or Remembrance Day, marks the day in 1976 when the Khmer Rouge leaders decided to transform Cambodia into a completely agrarian society that led to the death of nearly two million Cambodians. It is usually celebrated in places where there were mass killings during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Kampong Tralach pagoda was used as prison or detention center by the Khmer Rouge during its rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. All windows and doors were closed. except one door from the west. The Khmer Rouge used this door for putting in and taking out prisoners to be killed. Prisoners who intended to escape were killed immediately near the temple and buried in the pagoda ground. The others were taken to be killed at Trapeang Sdao, two kilometers from the pagoda after having been jailed for some time.
According to Toch Samon, 56, Prey Thom commune chief, there are 584 Khmer Rouge victims here. He also claimed that the skulls and bones were taken from Trapeang Sdao to the pagoda in 1984 to make it easy for people to organize religious ceremonies for those victims. “The skulls and bones in the stupa were taken from two places, from this pagoda and from Trapeang Sdao. There are many pits in the pagoda but only five were excavated and there are eleven unearthed pits at Trapeang Sdao,” said Samon.
The pits at Trapeang Sdao were dug up in 1982 and bones and skulls were then kept temporarily at the commune center. “When the pits were uncovered, most of the victims were naked. There were not many clothes. The Khmer Rouge might kill them after taking off the clothes. In the small pits there were six or seven bodies and in the big pits there were up to 30 or 40 victims.” he added.
On the 20th of May, Anger Day, which was renamed to Remembrance Day, is conducted here to remember the suffering of people and the brutality of the Pol Pot regime. During the celebration, artists perform role plays about the Khmer Rouge, the victims and they re-enact the ways the Khmer Rouge killed people.
Location: Kampong Tralach village, Kep commune, Kampot district, Kampot province
Distance: Around 170 kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh
Victims: 584 (source: Prey Thom commune chief)
Extracted from:
-Diary 2010, Stories from the Ground “All Windows and Doors Were Closed”.
