Remembering days of this old school yard
A sizeable chunk of our time in Phnom Penh was spent finding out about Cambodian history, particularly the atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge during the violent coup of July 1997 and the ensuing civil war. We visited the chilling Toul Sleng torture centre, a former high school that was used by the Khmer Rouge as Prison S21 where many high ranking enemies were kept, along with normal Cambodians.
It was without a doubt the most horrible place on earth from 1975 to 1979.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Within these walls, 17,000 prisoners, including entire families, were incarcerated, interrogated and tortured here, all for the soul purpose of extracting confessions from them before execution.
The intention of the Khmer Rouge under its leader Pol Pot was to turn Cambodia into a Maoist cooperative and its inhabitants into peasant farmers. During their diabolical reign which lasted from April 1975 until January 1979, around 2 million Cambodians are estimated to have been tortured and killed – that is twice the number of people today residing in Cambodia’ capital city, Phnom Penh.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Now a genocide museum, S21 was the largest detention centre in the country. There were many examples of the torture that took place and rooms filled with mugshots of all of the captives. We walked round the cells with their rusty skeletal beds and bloodstains on the floor, the rooms and rooms of faded black and white photos of staring victims and the tiny, primitive brick cells with chains.
The KR kept meticulous records photographing each of the seventeen thousand prisoners detained here. Today row after row of these black and white photos adorn the walls of one of the buildings of S21. Not just men of military age, but young women some with babies, the elderly and children gaze down hauntingly at the visitor. Some of these victims had no idea what awful fate was to befall them. They are actually smiling! Others are under no illusions. In the photographs they appear stooped forward, the result of having their hands tied behind their back. Still others bear the marks of beatings.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Of the 17,000 inmates who entered Tuol Sleng, only seven people - seven - are known to have survived. The rest of them either died inside or met their fate in the killing fields of Choeung Ek, just outside of town.
It was without a doubt the most horrible place on earth from 1975 to 1979.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Within these walls, 17,000 prisoners, including entire families, were incarcerated, interrogated and tortured here, all for the soul purpose of extracting confessions from them before execution.
The intention of the Khmer Rouge under its leader Pol Pot was to turn Cambodia into a Maoist cooperative and its inhabitants into peasant farmers. During their diabolical reign which lasted from April 1975 until January 1979, around 2 million Cambodians are estimated to have been tortured and killed – that is twice the number of people today residing in Cambodia’ capital city, Phnom Penh.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Now a genocide museum, S21 was the largest detention centre in the country. There were many examples of the torture that took place and rooms filled with mugshots of all of the captives. We walked round the cells with their rusty skeletal beds and bloodstains on the floor, the rooms and rooms of faded black and white photos of staring victims and the tiny, primitive brick cells with chains.
The KR kept meticulous records photographing each of the seventeen thousand prisoners detained here. Today row after row of these black and white photos adorn the walls of one of the buildings of S21. Not just men of military age, but young women some with babies, the elderly and children gaze down hauntingly at the visitor. Some of these victims had no idea what awful fate was to befall them. They are actually smiling! Others are under no illusions. In the photographs they appear stooped forward, the result of having their hands tied behind their back. Still others bear the marks of beatings.
Copyright Tan and Trev 2005
Of the 17,000 inmates who entered Tuol Sleng, only seven people - seven - are known to have survived. The rest of them either died inside or met their fate in the killing fields of Choeung Ek, just outside of town.
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