Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide

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Chao Ponhea Yat High School looks like any other rundown urban high School,  it sits on a street on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.  In 1975 the Khmer Rouge turned it into a torture, interrogation and execution center,  re naming it Security Prison #21 - S21.  Only 7 of the 14,000 known to have entered, survived.  Up close one becomes aware of the barbed wire enclosing the buildings walkways to prevent escape and possible suicide.  No longer electrified but still formidable
  It became a museum in 1980 and named Toul Sleng for the hill it stands on

My visit began at a screening of the docudrama 'Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy'  by Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh.  The dramatised story of Hout Bophana and Ly Sitha who met married and died at Tuol Sleng unbeknownst to each other on the same day

Nobody left that room with dry eyes

Long dead prisoner 162 gazes hauntingly through the windows                  

His view, just feet away, the barbed wire confining him
S-21 was designed specifically for interrogation and elimination of the 'betrayal elements'
Security Of Regulations

1.  You must answer accordingly to my questions.  Don't turn them away

2  Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me

3  Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution

4   You must immediately answer my question without wasting time to reflect

5  Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution

6  While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all

7  Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders.  If there are no orders keep quiet

    When I ask you to do something you must do it right away without protesting

8  Don't make protest about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor

9  If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire

10  If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge
 

Classroom divided into tiny cells in which assigned prisoners were chained

In larger areas up to a hundred detainees were shackled together day and night.  Not only Khmer died here, there were also American, Australian, British, Canadian, Indian, Laotion, New Zealander, Pakistani, Thai and Vietnamese tortured and killed here
Van Nath Official Artist of Tuol Sleng

One of only 7 people to live to tell the tale.  He was detained for a year before liberation and only survived because of his talent for painting propaganda portraits of Pol Pot.  On the anniversary of his freedom he returned to recreate the horrendous scenes of torture he had witnessed.   He was working at the museum with Rith Oanh on 'Bophana' when his path unintentionally crossed with some of his former guards, resulting in the film, 'S21 - The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine' where torturers & victims come together to talk about what happened 30yrs before 

Cambodia Map | 2007/08 Asia Trip Itinerary | Home Page 6 of 6| Page Up