The sleepy neighborhood surrounding Chao Ponhea Yat High School in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon District somehow secludes itself from the gridlocked streets of the Cambodian capital. Much like the aging French architecture of its neighbors, the school’s crumbling exterior does little to distinguish itself at first glance. But once you notice the barbed wire nests fixed to the top of its concrete perimeter, the absence of schoolchildren becomes more apparent.
In 1975, following the Khmer Rouge victory in the Cambodian Civil War, the school became an interrogation center to extort written confessionals and names of known conspirators from alleged enemies of the state. Code-named Security Prison 21 (S-21), the prison was active for 4 years, during which time over 15,000 Cambodian and foreign-born captives were subject to heinous torture techniques before their ultimate execution in the infamous Choeung Ek Killing Fields.
Led by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge set out to institute a “Year Zero” policy in which all “new people” — urban residents such as intellects, professionals, artists, and teachers — were to be exterminated to make way for a new communist society. However, as its paranoia grew, the regime started to turn on itself which ultimately led to its downfall in 1979 when the Vietnamese Army took control of the capital. Between 1.7 to 2.2 million people in a country of only 8 million disappeared during this period, making it one of the largest genocides in recorded human history.
But at the time, the extent of the mass torture operations was widely unknown. It wasn’t until the discovery of S-21’s abandoned facilities that the world learned of the atrocities carried out by the Khmer Rouge. The prison’s strict documentation protocols left behind an extensive archive of detailed torture procedures, written confessions, and photographs of over 5,000 prisoners.
These relics now serve as haunting depositions within the walls of the former S-21, now known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or “Hill of the Poisonous Tree.”
The complex has been preserved to represent the distressing conditions in which it was discovered in 1979. Walking through Tuol Sleng doesn’t feel like the typical museum experience. There are no boundaries between the visitors and exhibits and few staff members are on hand. The eased regulation is deliberate and meant to create a raw, immersive environment that enables a chilling sense of empathy for the former detainees.
Guests are allowed to move freely within the classrooms, fitted with hundreds of makeshift prison cells, to understand the barbarous conditions under which detainees awaited their interrogations. Most of the crudely constructed cells are without doors since prisoners were shackled to the ground at all times, and the entire face of the three-story building where inmates were held remains covered in barbed wire.
At any given time, the prison held up to 1,500 prisoners. Since the facility only contained a few hundred private cells, the remaining detainees were placed in mass holding cells where they were laid across the floor, shackled side-by-side, and stripped of their clothing. No opportunities were given to the crowds of prisoners to clean or relieve themselves which led to the spread of infectious disease.
Many of the torture devices and beds victims were fastened to during their interrogations are left bloodstained and rusting on display throughout the facilities. Every interrogator was instructed to photograph the prisoners after each session as proof they had completed their duties. These pictures along with detailed illustrations hang from the walls to demonstrate the various methods used during the interrogations; some of which included: electrocution, strangulation, fingernail removal, water-boarding, and burning. Strict instructions were given to only inflict harm on the victims, and if a prisoner was killed before they confessed the interrogator could be tortured as punishment.
Interrogations lasted for months. The intention was to extract detailed written confessions for each accusation along with the names of friends and family members who also conspired against the regime. Out of desperation, ordinary citizens were forced to confess to extravagant crimes such as espionage in collaboration with the CIA; an organization they had never heard of.
Kerry Hamill, a New Zealand national whose boat had been captured near the Thai island of Koh Tang, wrote in his confession that, in the CIA, he had been a subordinate to ‘Colonel Sanders,’ the founder of American fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Fourteen white coffins lay above ground in the courtyard making up a memorial dedicated to the last victims detained at S-21. Their bodies were found mutilated and chained to metal bed frames when the compound was discovered by Vietnamese journalists, and believed to have been alive just hours prior.
But perhaps the most chilling facet of the tour are the thousands of black and white portraits housed in glass cases that line the museum’s hallways. Each prisoner’s photograph was taken when they were first admitted into the prison to be documented and filed. Their names were never determined because corresponding records were lost, instead they are identified only by the numbers pinned to their shirts in the photographs.
The operations of Security Gate 21 were kept secret, and captives did not understand the extent of the imminent horrors when they arrived. The seemingly endless arrays of children, seniors, women, and men illustrate the overall fear and confusion that consumed the prison’s inhabitants after they were seized from their everyday lives. Some of the photographs captured the final moments before infants were separated from their mothers and taken straight to the Killing Fields. A natural desire for hope emerges for the innocent faces as you make your way through the halls, but of the estimated 15,000 inmates that went through S-21, only 12 are known to have survived.
To date, only five members of the Khmer Rouge have been indicted for their crimes against humanity during the Cambodian genocide, an event in which more than 1.7 million people lost their lives. Many of the personnel at S-21 were forced to work as security guards, interrogators, and cooks in fear of being accused of treason, and are still alive today. Nhem Yean, now 60 years old, recalls his tenure at the facility:
“When I worked at S-21, I did not have the motivation, but I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t live. However, no matter which options I chose, I still feared. There was nothing I could do.”
The graphic nature of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum can be difficult to endure, but its success in accentuating the grotesque truths of a dark period in history, rather than mollifying them, serves as an effective tribute to the otherwise unimaginable suffering of so many. Rarely are we introduced to the unfortunate who stood where we could have if history had materialized otherwise.
