In 1975, Tuol
Svay Prey
High School was taken
over by Pol Pot's security force and turned into a prison known as Security
Prison 21 (S-21). It soon became the largest such center of detention and
torture in the country. Over 17,000 people held at S-21 were taken to the
extermination camp at Choeung Ek to be executed; detainees who died during
torture were buried in mass graves in the prison grounds. S-21 has been turned
into the Tuol Sleng Museum, which serves as a testament to the crimes of the
Khmer Rough.
The museum's entrance is on the western side of 113 St just
north of 350 St, and it is open daily from 7 to 11.30 am and from 2 to 5.30 pm;
entry is US$2.Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rough was meticulous in keeping records
of their barbarism. Each prisoner who passed through S.21 was photographed, sometimes
before and after being tortured. The museum displays include room after room in
which such photographs of men, women and children cover the walls from floor to
ceiling; virtually all the people pictured were later killed.
You can tell in what year a picture was taken by the style
of number board that appears on the prisoner's chest. Several foreigners from
Australia, France and the USA were held here before being murdered. Their
documents are on display. As the Khmer 'revolution' reached ever-greater
heights of insanity, it began devouring its own children. Generations of
tortures and executioners and were in turn killed by those who took their
places. During the first part of 1977, S-21 claimed an average of 100 victims a
day. When the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh in early 1979, they found
only seven prisoners alive at S-21. Fourteen others had been tortured to death
as Vietnamese forces were closing in on the city. Photographs of their
decomposing corpses were found. Their graves are nearby in the courtyard.
Altogether, a visit to Tuol Sleng is a profoundly depressing
experience. There is something about the sheer ordinariness of the place that
make it even more horrific; the suburban setting, the plain school buildings, the
grassy playing area where several children kick around a ball, ousted beds, instruments
of torture and wall after wall of harrowing black-and-white portraits conjure
up images of humanity at its worst. Tuol Sleng is not for the squeamish.
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