First Survivor interviews

The beach was a great reprieve from city life -- and Aiden’s three hour afternoon naps didn’t hurt either! It was with a bit of disappointment that we had to head home, but that night, July 2, Alan was arriving and we had to prepare the house.

Alan settled in nicely, seemingly adjusting the heat and hustle with ease. We hit the ground running, and on the following Tuesday had our first interview at Tuol Sleng prison with Chu Mey, one of only twelve of the prison’s survivors and one of only four survivors still living. Starting out with new (and heavy) audio equipment was a bit of a challenge, but even more than that were the attempts at trying to get someone who has interviewed literally hundreds of times give answers that were not canned. The fact that I knew much of his chronological story and in reality was searching for the sub layer never quite sunk in – or perhaps was never accurately translated. Indeed, working with the translator was a challenge—not as difficult as with the first translator I interviewed, but difficult nonetheless. I could never be sure if it was the subject who was resisting the answers or the translator encouraging, even unconsciously, avoidance. The interviews always reverted back to the details of the life story and we could rarely penetrate any deeper. After five hours of dialogue (and I couldn’t help notice my lunch turning stone cold as it sat beside me, my stomach grumbling) my patience was tried and I simply didn’t know what else to do to turn the tide. This isn’t to say I didn’t hear an amazing story from someone who is lovely and open and so eager to share his tale for the world to hear. It’s more that I’m being confronted with a culture that does not easily express emotion. To do so is considered brash, weak or worse: akin to an illness, for which the Khmer Rouge would kill.

That said, Chu Mey was the first to tell me that it was only through the presence of TPO counselors at the trial that he could tell his testimony at all, and it is through telling his story that he has found meaning and strength to go on. This is a common refrain, and this is in fact why I am doing what I’m doing. The healing powers of storytelling… In the US we call it psychotherapy, but it’s more than that. It’s the act of telling and being listened to with a sincere interest to hear. It’s about presence and believing someone’s story. One survivor described his two years in a prison in Siam Reap then ended with: do you believe my story? Duch wants people to believe that the things we say didn’t happen. I tried to imagine the living this man’s experiences – horrible enough in and of themselves – and then being told that I was exaggerating or even lying. Insult to injury but with a layer leveled at destroying the self.

Yes, I believe his story. Yes, I believe everything he said, even if there are other cases and times when I do in fact have my doubts. So it’s also about acknowledging someone’s experience, being able to honor what someone has gone through, and to say to that person that in telling their story there may be some kind of redemption and some kind of reconciliation.

The most fear I saw in someone’s eye was from a woman who served as a Khmer Rouge soldier until she herself was imprisoned and tortured. She was one of the lucky ones, and was able to stay alive until the regime ended. She married her husband shortly after the Vietnamese invasion but tells me that it was only in 2007, after her photo in Tuol Sleng was identified and she was encouraged to testify at the tribunal, that her husband learned she had been a soldier – and she learned that he had had a wife and child before her, both of whom were killed by the Khmer Rouge. This detail struck me more than many others, and as we rode back home in the tuk tuk I wondered aloud, “Can you imagine being married for almost thirty years and never sharing your personal experiences under the Khmer Rouge with your partner? If you suffered, had nightmares and difficulties sleeping because of your post-traumatic stress [as she acknowledged], then how would you explain that? If you rarely left your house or covered your face for fear of being identified by others, then what would you say by explanation? We in the West – and particularly among my highly communicative friends – are very focused on notions of clear communication and honesty, particularly in relationships. So where would this fit in, this idea of survival through silence? growing silent trees, as they called it here. When is it that the survival is assured (or as assured as any survival can be) and the silence is all that remains? Or is it as one survivor noted, “the khmer rouge never left. They are in all the high government positions, so why would we think it’s safe to start speaking about our experience now?”