Tuol Sleng

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is located in Phnom Penh at the former site of Security Prison 21 (S-21). This was a high school converted by the Khmer Rouge into a detention facility, and their primary interrogation facility in Phnom Penh.

The prisoners in here were fed very poorly, rarely bathed, and regularly tortured. Each of them had written confessions, some numbering only a few pages, some in the hundreds. It is clear in reading them that the confessions were largely directed by the questioner and forced via torture.

This is a picture of the guards at the facility. As with many of the Khmer Rouge soldiers, they were quite young. And most of them were executed themselves before the Vietnamese took control.

These are photographs of some of the estimated 20,000 prisoners to pass through S-21. Each of the prisoners was documented meticulously. Their confessions are fairly wild, with a huge number of them saying that they worked for the KGB or CIA. By the time one reached S-21, it was probably too late. I read today that three accusations that you worked for the CIA was enough for an arrest, and if doubts were raised by further questioning, they would be imprisoned. S-21 was referred to as the place that people went to and never came back.

These are what the typical cells looked like. The first picture in this posts is of a cell for a person of special interest.

This museum was very difficult.