Tuol Sleng – S.21 – Genocide museum

The fate of Cambodia shocked the world when the radical communist Khmer Rouge under their leader Pol Pot seized power in 1975 after years of guerrilla warfare.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died during the next three years, many from exhaustion or starvation. Others were tortured and executed.

A basic summary of the aim of this communist Khmer Rouge's regime was to get rid of all educated people and modernity in Cambodia. As soon as they came to power they evacuated all the cities and sent the inhabitants to rural areas to work the land under conditions of slavery and they killed anyone who was an intellectual or anybody who could go against their regime/ beliefs. You could even be killed for wearing a pair of reading glasses.

One of the cells in the S-21 facility where prisioners would
have been chained to the bed and forced into false confessions.

In Phnom Penh there still exists a chilling memory from this time. An old secondary school that was transformed in 1975 into ‘Security Office 21’ under the orders of Pol Pot.

The facility was designed for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture and killing after forced confession from the detainees were received and documented.

The bodies of fourteen victims were discovered by the United Front when they entered Phnom Penh on January 7^th, 1979. The corpses were unidentifiable due to bad decomposition. One of the corpses was that of a woman and these were the last people to be tortured in the S-21 facility before personnel fled as a result of the Vietnamese invading the city.

A list of rules that were enforced at S-21 during interrogation.

This photo shows the barbed-wire that was put outside the
corridors of the cells to ensure that none of the desperate
 tortured prisioners could commit suicide by jumping down.

Many forms of torture were used for interrogation purposes. These methods ranged from electrocution, beating, drowning and the pulling of nails and other parts of the body.

The research into prisoner records of S-21 shows the following number of inmates from 1975 to 1978

• 1975 – 154 prisoners
• 1976 – 2, 250 prisoners
• 1977 – 2, 350 prisoners
• 1978 – 5, 765 prisoners

This photo shows some of the tortured victime of Tuol Sleng
(click to enlarge)

These figures do not include children killed by Khmer Rouge which is estimated at around 20,000.

This museum is a stark reminder of the atrocities that happened in this country, not that long ago!

Visiting the prison was a very intense experience. Although most of the rooms are very bare and haven’t got any information to read, you can use your imagination to see what went on there. A very chilling experience, especially the last room which has cabinets filled with skulls and bones of victims that were found around the grounds of the facility. 

 (All photos taken by me)


Besos,

Stevieg