Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 6 March 2018
Cambodian genocide documented in victims' preserved clothes

By SOPHENG CHEANG and teaching half a dozen
GRANT PECK, Cambodian colleagues
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia to photograph a piece
(AP) — As a leader in the to identify it for inventory,
field of textile conservation, "then just to surface clean
Julia Brennan has worked carefully with a vacuum or
to preserve many glamor- a soft brush, and then the
ous and historic articles of dirt can be saved as part
clothing, from a kimono of the record and some
presented to Babe Ruth, to of the surface soiling will
singer James Brown's jump- be loosened." Treatment
suit, to a British aristocrat's doesn't end there. In tropi-
coronation gown. cal places like Cambodia,
Her profession, however, there's a lot of mildew and
has also brought her into mold as well as live insects
contact with humanity's to deal with. To try to pro-
darkest moments, includ- tect the material for the
ing genocides in Rwanda long term, it is put into "mi-
and Cambodia. cro climates" in which the
Brennan recently began relative humidity can be
a project at the Tuol Sleng reduced. Brennan said she
Genocide Museum in Cam- developed this system dur-
bodia's capital, Phnom ing her work in Rwanda,
Penh, where the Khmer In this Feb. 5, 2018, photo, leading textile conservationist Julia Brennan holds a scarf from a victim putting the items in dry stor-
of the former Khmer Rouge as she inspects artifacts at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom
Rouge in the late 1970s tor- Penh, Cambodia. age boxes with desiccants,
tured as many as 17,000 Associated Press pellets normally used in the
men, women and children agriculture industry.
before killing them. The mu- 2014. The 59-year-old Bren- train Cambodian staff to museum's chief conserva- Kho Chenda, a 28-year-old
seum's macabre artifacts nan was born to American care for them. tor, said in an email. staff member at Tuol Sleng,
include torture devices parents in Indonesia, where Brennan worked on a simi- Brennan, who since 1996 has taken Brennan's pres-
and displays of skulls. her father was on a Jesuit lar project for the past two has had her own company, ervation lessons to heart.
The most haunting display scholarship teaching at years in Rwanda, where Caring for Textiles, in Wash- She said what she's learned
comprises photo portraits universities and doing re- long-standing rivalries be- ington, D.C., made a similar is vital because of the mu-
that were kept as part of search. She was raised in tween two tribes led to point during an interview at seum's mission to teach the
the meticulous record- northern Thailand, where the killings of an estimated Tuol Sleng. horrific legacy of the Khmer
800,000 people in 1994. "You're not going to neces- Rouge. "If that clothing gets
She helped to preserve sarily cry or have memories too old and worn out, then
clothing at the Nyamata when you see a skull, but the evidence it offers will
church, where more than when you see a skirt that's be gone, and when you
10,000 people were slaugh- the same pattern as your talk to the younger genera-
tered as they sought shelter mother's, then that's going tion, they will not believe
from marauding mobs. The to bring these memories you," she said. Kong Kunt-
church is now a memorial that are so palpable, and heary, another of Brennan's
site, with the clothing an in- this is so powerful," she said. students, echoed the senti-
tegral part of its exhibition. Less is more in conserva- ment. "This clothing is really
The power of clothing in tion, according to Brennan, important evidence, so we
documenting genocide is "because we want to keep have to preserve it to make
widely recognized by ex- the associated dirt and sure that even in 100 or 200
perts. The collection at the stains and particles as part years, it will not have disap-
Auschwitz-Birkenau Me- of the context and informa- peared," said the 52-year-
morial and Museum in Po- tion of the artifact." old employee of the Na-
In this Feb. 5, 2018, photo, a tourist views piles of clothing from
the victims executed by the Khmer Rouge regime at the Tuol land includes 390 striped So for Tuol Sleng's artifacts, tional Museum in Phnom
Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. inmates' uniforms and 246 she said she has been Penh.q
Associated Press Jewish prayer shawls, ac-
cording to Pawel Sawicki, a
keeping ordered by Tuol her father worked for the press officer for the memo-
Sleng's Khmer Rouge com- U.S. government, and when rial.
mander, who in 2012 was he later worked on a Euro- The United States Holocaust
sentenced to life in prison pean Union arms control Memorial Museum in Wash-
for crimes against human- project in Cambodia, Bren- ington, D.C., holds a variety
ity, murder and torture. nan became acquainted of items of clothing as well.
But only a small amount with that country's culture. One of the most striking ex-
of victims' clothing is dis- Brennan was keenly inter- hibits is of 4,000 shoes from
played; most was stowed ested in the Tuol Sleng proj- some of the victims of the
away in nooks and cran- ect, and the U.S. Embassy Majdanek concentration
nies, untouched since the in Phnom Penh eventually camp in Poland.
museum was established gave a $55,000 grant to "The exhibit very simply
in 1980. Museum director support it. shows the magnitude of
Chhay Visoth felt it was ur- She then began her work Nazi murder while simulta-
gent to register and pre- to jump-start the preserva- neously allowing the viewer In this April 9, 2015, file photo, tourists view portraits of victims
executed by the Khmer Rouge regime at the Tuol Sleng Geno-
serve these holdings, and tion of 3,000-5,000 articles to individualize the horror," cide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
he sought Brennan's help in of prisoners' clothing and Jane Klinger, the Holocaust Associated Press