Chris Gravett

For most travellers heading for Cambodia the main reason and highlight is Sien Reap and the temples at Angkor and indeed I went there and will posting photos and stories in due course. But for me one of the most memorable experiences I had in Cambodia was a visit to S-21, Security Office 21 also known as Tuol Sleng Prison. I am ashamed to admit that having lived through the Khmer Rouge era I never really appreciated the extent of  Pol Pot's atrocities. A visit to S-21 which is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a really humbling and also a distressing experience. 

Pol Pot exterminated over 2 million people in Cambodia in a three year period, 1975 - 1978 choosing in particular to kill the educated. That's somewhere between 20% and 50% of the population depending whose figures you take. But whatever the percentage it's horrific. S-21 was just one, but perhaps the most notorious, of the Khmer Rouge prision camps. many of the prisoners (and their families) who were tortured here were taken on to the Killing Fields of Choeng Ek to be executed. 

Below - an introduction to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Below are  some images from my visit to S-21

This is Building A at S-21. The site was formally a school and it's still easy to recognise it as such. It was a large area hosting the Tuol Sleng Primary School and Tuol Svay Prey High School, so many of Phnom Penh's children will have studied here - and between 1975 and 1978 many will have died here along with their parents.

Above a description of what was housed in the three storey A Block. Below an A Block cell with typical furniture and on the wall a photograph of the same cell complete with tortured prisoner.

Below - B Building which contained much smaller individual cells. part of the building contains photos and artefacts other parts have been left as there were found in 1979

Opposite B Block is what was an exercise bar at the school - converted by the Khmer Rouge into torture gallows

B Building Cells

Also in B Building actual torture appparatus with diagrams explaining how it was used. Unsurprisingly although there were many visitors around there was total silence in these rooms.

I took a wrong turn and ended up down this stairwell in Block B where the exit was sealed. It didn't take me long to get back up on to the top floor and on the correct route. The stairwell looks well lit here but it was quite dark and a bit scary!

The prisoners were all numbered and photographed prior to being tortured/ executed

17,000 were taken from here and executed at the Killing Fields - others died whilst still in S-21

Leg manicles now on show in the museum

Only seven prisoners survived S-21 - below is a photo of them

The guy on the left is Chum Manh (or Mey). Chum is an associate director of KSAEM KSAN Association - a group which works to get compensation for victims, to ensure those responsible and still alive have trials and to preserve this museum. He happened to be at the museum when I visited so I was able to meet him, photograph him and get a signed copy of a magazine about him.

Chum Manh

There are many rooms of photographic evidence in the museum and many photos of victims and perpretators. One image caught my attention.

David Lloyd Scott

David Scott was an Australian who was executed at S-21. According to the declaration David was working for the CIA. But on doing some research it turns out that David and another Aussie had been sailing in what they thought was Thailand's waters when they were captured by the Khmer Rouge. David was a roadie for a West Australian band - Bakery. David when interrogated claimed he was recruited to the CIA by a Mr. Magoo in Prague! He also named band members as other officers in the CIA. David along with another Aussie, Ronald Dean, a club barman from Sydney, simply had contempt for their captors and signed declarations that were a piss take. Unfortunately in doing so they signed their own death warrents.

After visiting S-21 I went on to the Killing Fields. Although horrific the Killing Fields did not have the same impact on me as S-21. The fields are much smaller than I imagined and I guess as a museum are not as well presented as S-21. There is a  glass memorial tower at the Killing Fields filled with skulls - a memorial to the 17,000 victims.

 

Killing Fields