There is nothing good I can say about these places other than that I believe everybody should know about this. Try visit or at least learn about this as much as possible. I must admit I’m completely uneducated in a lot of events that have happened in the world. I learn everything I know by visiting the places they happened.

​I’ve been to Auschwitz before and I always thought that would be the most depressing place I ever visited but actually I was wrong.

​The day started at the killing fields again with a guide. It was very hot and I didn’t listen to a lot of what he was saying as sweltering really distracts me. When we walked around the field stepping on bits of people’s bones that lay beneath us it really begin to hit home how recent this was. It terrifies me. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a real persons skull before. I’ve never really thought about it before but when you are presented with thousands of real skulls all stacked up together including the weapons that have been used to make the marks that you see in the skulls.. It’s quite overwhelming.

​I just wasn’t expecting to see all this. I deliberately did no research so I could see it myself first hand.

​From the killing fields we headed to the genocide museum which is actually the former prison that the people were tortured in before being sent to the killing fields. This place was similar to a lot of the depressing torture chambers I’ve visited in the past, this seems to be becoming a habit of mine!

​It wasn’t until we met a man who was 9 years old when he entered the prison. He told us the story of how he lost his entire family here and how he used to watch his mother from the window but he didn’t know what was happening. It was the saddest story anybody has ever told me about themselves. Then going in to the cells to hear about how people were tortured to death was far too much to take. I left the tour at this point as there is only so much you can hear about the brutal methods that human beings can come up with. Hanging someone upside down from their hands and feet so their shoulders dislocate until they pass out so you can then dip their head in to dirty water to wake them up again being one of these methods.

​Even writing this blog post makes me emotional. Especially since after all this we met the 2 remaining survivors that are still alive and were subjects to the torture methods. They told us there stories and our guide translated for us. They have written books which have since been translated to English and we bought these to read their stories in more detail. It made me sad that one of the men didn’t know what happened to his wife until 2008 when he met the general guard of the prison. Men involved in the running of the prison are either in prison or still on trial since this is such a recent event. I was really surprised to be face to face with survivors of this tragedy.

​Such a sad event and really eye opening. I encourage everyone to visit this place so you can too learn about such a recent piece of history.