Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and Choeung Ek Genocidal Center

Warning – this one is heavy…

From April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979, Cambodia was controlled by the regime known as the Khmer Rouge, led by a ruthless man named Pol Pot. It was the goal of this leadership to push Cambodia to a completely self-sufficient agrarian society, so upon taking power, Pol Pot immediately cleared the people out of the cities, shut down factories and schools and declared all currency and private property obsolete. The people were herded to collective farms where they were forced to work, many of them to death. Others met their deaths much earlier – intellectuals and ethnic minorities were killed almost immediately. The genocide officially ended when Vietnamese troops invaded and overthrew the government, but not before the death toll reached nearly 2 million Cambodian people (almost 25% of the population at the time).

Prison S21, Known Today as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Prior to the Khmer Rouge taking power, the place that would become the infamous Prison S21 was used as a high school. Under Pol Pot, this location in Phnom Penh was used as a prison that housed up to 20,000 prisoners where people were tortured until they would give the names of other people whom the regime sought to exterminate.

By the time the Vietnamese liberated the prison, only seven adult and four child prisoners remained alive. They are pictured above. Today, only two of the adults are still alive.

Today, only four of the buildings of the former school remain, but you can see how they were three story buildings, each story lined with classrooms. Barbed fencing prevented prisoners from trying to escape.

At the right end of the bed, you can see the shackles they attached to the ankles to prevent them from getting out of bed.

The structure seen here was used as a gallows where they would string the prisoners up by their arms (see the figure in front of the pots). Prior to this, it was used by the school for rope climbing in PE class. In the picture on the right, you can see the white boxes. This is where each of the final 14 victims were buried. This was formerly the volleyball court used by the high school.

Holes were cut into the classroom walls as makeshift doors, making easy access between rooms

Most of the classrooms were left wide open where they could house many more prisoners. It’s hard to see, but in the picture on the right there is a drawing depicting them laying packed into the room and shackled at the ankles. The middle picture shows several of the shackles.

People would be strapped to this table and tortured

There were at least 100 more of these kinds of prisons around the country where people would be imprisoned until they moved to the next, even more horrible, place: the Killing Field.

Choeung Ek Genocidal Center

Choeung Ek is one of the many killing fields found throughout the country. Located about 10 miles south of Phnom Penh, this is where the prisoners of S21 would come to and never return. There were as many as 9000 bodies buried in mass graves at this site, many of which are still there.

Trucks would pull in with prisoners and park in this spot. Prisoners would be taken to the pits and killed immediately after arrival

Memorial Stupa which houses 5000 human skulls and many other bones.

The reign of the Khmer Rouge ended when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. Pol Pot and his regime retreated to the jungles of northern Cambodia where they still were able to exhibit some control. It wasn’t until 1997 when he would be put on trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. Unfortunately justice would never really have been served as he would only be put on house arrest and died of natural causes in 1998. To this day, only three men have been charged with their actions during this four year reign of terror.