A week in Cambodia -11/18/2023-11/24/2023
Phnom Penh -11/18/2023
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
Tuol Sleng (hill of the Poisonous Trees) Genocide Museum retracing the Cambodian Genocide is located in a former high school which was then used as a Security Prison 21-(S-21) by the Khmer Rouge government under Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979s. It opened to the public as a museum and war memorial in 1980. Tuol Sleng was the most notorious of the 189 known interrogation centers in Cambodia, Between 14,000 and 17,000 prisoners were detained there, often in primitive brick cells built in former classrooms from 1976 to 1979. The Kmer Rouge established between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers and the secret police known as the Santebal (literally "keeper of peace") during their reign of terror.
Courtyard before entering the prison (former high school).
The entrance.
The prison had once been Preah Ponhea Yat High School that was built
in 1962 and later renamed Tuol Svay Prey. Behind the school fence were
two wooden buildings with thatched roofs, one of which had been Tuol Sleng
Primary School. Together these buildings formed the S-21 prison.
This used to be a school yard but the Khmer Rouge used to hold
prisoners before they were to be taken to the Killing Fields, but many died
of starvation, disease and torture before reaching the Killing field. The
prison was uncovered by the invading Vietnamese in 1979 and was reopened in
1980 as a museum.
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Map of the prison
In the center of the school yard that was used a volleyball court became a cemetery with 14 graves.
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At the end of the gravest his area was called the gallows where they used to hang prisoners.
Prisoners were hung upside down from the gallows, their heads dunked into the water to near drowning, as a means of extracting confessions.
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Statue of a prisoner enduring torture.
Today, the Courtyard is lined with fragrant native
trees and shaded benches, recalling happier days when this area of the torture
prison was a schoolyard for pupils.
To think that this place was a torture center and so many people lost their life here is unimaginable.
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Rules inside the prison that people have to adhere to.
a
The buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms
converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were
covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes and suicides.
The five buildings of the complex were converted in March or April 1976 into a prison and an interrogation center.
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We are going to Building A. Building A is where you see the torture rooms.
Four school buildings comprise the campus and are arranged in the form of an
open rectangle around a courtyard. Classrooms were converted by the Khmer
Rouge into prison cells and torture chambers. The entire compound was
surrounded by electric barbed wire, and the open corridors of some of the
buildings were enclosed with barbed wire, probably to prevent prisoners from
escaping or from jumping to their deaths from the upper floors.
We are now entering Building A
In building A, classrooms were converted by the Khmer Rouge into
prison cells and torture chambers.
A torture chamber with a single iron bed frame and iron shackle device.
Chilling picture of a ded man chained to the bed after being tortured. This picture was taken by a Vietnamese photographer when they came to the prison hours before the prison was liberated in 1979.
Building B is where you will see photos of victims.
Thousands of photographs of prisoners taken upon their arrival at S-21 are on display at the Museum. These photographs are extremely important to family members searching for those who disappeared under the Khmer Rouge regime
Building C is where the victims were locked up.
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We are now moving to Building C where family members were chained in small cells measuring 2.7 ft. wide and 6.5 ft. long.
Walls separating the cells were made of rough brickwork or wood partition.
Due to the overcrowding of prisoners and the unsanitary conditions of the
facility, many detainees in S-21 probably died of disease.
We are heading to Building D.
Building D is the where most of the documents related to this dark era of Cambodia history is stored.
In the end of the courtyard a huge poster of the 8 people that survived the brutal torture they endured at S-21.
At least 12,000 people were tortured and murders here.
Of all the victims only 12 (8 adults and 4 children) are know to survived. Pictures of the 8 adults that survived.
Next is another poster of the 4 children that survived this tragedy.
Not sure how these 4 was able to survive but they did.
When the city fell in early 1979, S-21 head, Comrade Duch, the head of the
prison managed to escape, but not before ordering the liquidation of all the
prison occupants. However, he did not have enough time to destroy the
comprehensive documentation housed at the prison, which now serves as
evidence of the atrocities committed at the site.
We are now leaving the building.
Next...City Tour
