TUOL SLENG GENOCIDE MUSEUM PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA
On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot entered Phnom Penh, forcing the city’s inhabitants into the countryside, to a life of forced labour. Up to 2.2 millions innocent Cambodians died from starva on, disease and execu on. Any perceived threat to the Khmer Rouge was eliminated; former government workers, intellectuals, professionals and even glass wearers were deemed enemies of the state. Paranoia ensued and places for interroga on/torture/murder were formed. This is a pictorial look at one of those places. Formerly The Chao Ponhea Yat High School, this is……
Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide (S-21)
One of the school’s five buildings, converted into an interroga on centre August 1975.
The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and the school was adapted into a prison to house the inmates.
Classroom
Many artefacts remain. An original blackboard, a reminder of how a place of development and learning was twisted into a place of pain, misery and destruc on.
Windows were covered with iron bars and gantries wired to prevent escape or suicide.
Upon arrival, prisoners were photographed and required to give detailed autobiographies, beginning with their childhood and ending with their arrest.
Classroom
Tortured soul
The prisoners were kept in small makeshi cells and shackled to the walls or concrete floor. Taken from here to the torture rooms for interroga on.
Torture Room
Leg Shackles
Most prisoners at S-21 were held there for two to three months.
Torture Room
Prisoners were rou nely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments, water boarding and hanging.
Others were a ached to intravenous pumps and every drop of blood was drained from their bodies to see how long they could survive. The most difficult prisoners were skinned alive.
Interroga on Room
Bed Chains
On 25th December, 1978, the Vietnamese Armed Forces invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh on 7th January 1979. On discovering Tuol Sleng they found several inmates, the picture on the wall shows one of them, a butchered vic m s ll shackled to the bed. Of the 17,000 prisoners that were detained there, just 12 survived Tuol Sleng.
A ray of sunshine in a place of such u er despair.