tuol sleng genocide museum
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S21)
The security prison 21 (S-21) used to be an idyllic high school, where children played their games, met their friends, learn about math, and complained about their homework. In August 1975, it was turned into a concentration camp. 17000 people were imprisoned and tortured in the prison, less than a dozen survived. The head of the security prison used to be a math teacher. He forced every prisoners to remember the Ten Rules of Tuol Sleng. The museum can be reached by Tuk Tuk from Phnom Penh.
The highschool camp were surrounded by barbwires to prevent prisoners from escaping. No one known ever escaped from this prison.
Tuol Sleng means the poision hill. An idyllic high school from outside, who can imagine the suffering that ever happened here.
14 people were still alive in 1979 when the Vietnamese government invaded Cambodia. By the time the Vietnamese troops arrived in Tuol Sleng, only seven were still alive (some were artists, some were mechanics, and one of the woman used to be from the same place where the security head of the prison were born).
The prisoners had to pee in these bullet boxes and were allowed to clean it every 2 weeks.
The first few rooms were used for interrogation and torturing.
They used to be classrooms before it became the torture room.
The first floor of the building were used to imprison the male prisoners The second floor were used for mass detention. The third floor were used to imprison the female prisoners.
the sport equipment were turned into torture equipment during the Khmer time
Many people were killed, some were the original prison guards in Tuol Sleng security prison. Even the prison guards had to obey rules. The rules include no sitting, no leaning on walls, no talking to prisoners. If they violated these rules, they will be tortured and killed. Even if they didn't violate any rules they could still be killed by the new prison guards because they knew too much.
The dead were dead forever, but the suffering remained.
Every prisoner was shackled to their bed. They were not allowed to talk to anyone. They couldn't even turn during their sleep. They had to obey the Ten Rules of Tuol Sleng.
- You must answer accordingly to my question. Don't turn them away.
- Don't try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- Don't be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- Don't tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- Don't make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
- If you don't follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire.
- If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
The second floor used to be mass detention center. Now is an exhibition with stories of the victims.
In Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, two monks were reading the stories of the victims, each story is a story of sadness.
The stories of the deceased were forever recorded by the photos.
