Khmer Rouge prison Phnom Phen Cambodia part 1 of 5

This is the prison where prisoners were held during Khmer rouge era Cambodia.

The Khmer Rouge believed that cities were living and breathing tools of capitalism in their own right - Phnom Penh referred toas "the great prostitute of the Mekong." In order to create the ideal communist society, all people would have to live and work in the countryside as peasants. Peasants, in fact, were the Khmer Rouge communist ideal, not unlike the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan of Nazi Germany. Peasants were seen as simple, uneducated, hard-working and not prone to exploiting others. Their way of life had not changed for centuries, yet they always managed to survive. It was this perception that caused the Khmer Rouge to view peasants - old people, to use their political jargon - as the ideal communists for the new Cambodian state.

The city dwellers of Phnom Penh and other Cambodian cities were seen as new people (or "April 17 people"). New people were the root of all capitalist evil in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge. It didn't matter if you were a teacher, a tailor, a civil servant or a monk: new people were the embodiment of capitalism and the enemy of communism, their personal political ideologies irrelevant. The Khmer Rouge felt that new people had made an active choice to live in the cities and thus declared their allegiance to capitalism. All city dwellers became enemies of the new communist state, a status that would cost hundreds of thousands of them their lives.

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[KhmerSerey1]

Millions died,millions and millions more are left heart broken.The damaged done are irreversible.Unimaginable pain and misery i would never ever wished upon other people or other countries.One would think a lesson was learned after what happened to the jews in the concentration camp.When one forget history,one is condemned to repeat it..