Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Cambodia.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Please note: You may find the story and images presented in this article deeply upsetting. Thus I wouldn’t blame you for sitting this one out. For those of you who do proceed, I’m guessing this is going to be as difficult to read as it was for me to write.

December 2015 & September 2020.

I never thought I would return to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Lord only knows once was enough. It was December 2015 when Wonderboy and I passed through these gates to see what remains of one of the world’s most horrifying prisons and torture centres.

For anyone not familiar with Cambodia’s awful genocide years, let me boil it down to the basics. In 1975 the ruling Khmer Rouge Party, led by general secretary Pol Pot, began a campaign to transform the country into a socialist agrarian republic.

In order to develop a nation of subservient farmers, The Khmer Rouge began systematically persecuting and murdering anyone they saw as a threat to their vision. Teachers, scientists, artists, intellects… they all found themselves either immediately executed or forced into labour camps.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The Khmer Rouge built prisons, torture centres and execution sites all over the country. Tuol Sleng, also known as Security Prison 21 (S-21), was the largest. I knew I would never forget that afternoon with Wonderboy learning about what happened to the pour souls who came here.

As fate would have it, I found myself back in the Cambodian capital in September 2020. Sladja and I had three days at our disposal while we waited for our flight to Istanbul. She had never visited Tuol Sleng, nor indeed its equally depressing sister site, Choeung Ek Killing Fields. Hence we braced ourselves and set off for the complex one typically hot and humid afternoon.

My second visit turned out to be even more haunting than the first. This time, with international tourism wiped out due to COVID-19, we found the place virtually empty. Visually the site was just as I remembered it. A cluster of large, bulky buildings framing a pretty garden with palm trees, benches and a well-kept lawn.

Just as it did the first time around, my self-guided visit began at Building A, a three-storied structure containing twenty cells. It’s especially depressing to think that the compound was home to Tuol Svay Pray High School when The Khmer Rouge claimed the place in March 1976.

Security Prison 21, Phnom Penh.

Take the stairs up to the third floor and you can still see several classrooms. In fact, they exist much as they did prior to The Khmer Rouge’s arrival. Indeed the guards didn’t get round to using every room in the compound.

Having secured the school, Pol Pot’s men set about converting the classrooms as per their needs. They installed electrified barbed wire around the buildings and put iron bars across all the windows.

On Building A’s ground floor, Sladja and I wandered through a number of cells and torture chambers. They sit largely empty, save for the occasional piece of furniture and an archive photograph on the wall. Pictured above is Room 1, a torture chamber containing an original bed. The photograph on the wall is absolutely horrific, even with the worst of the visuals covered by a thick wedge of tape.

An accompanying label informs visitors that a Vietnamese photographer by the name of Hồ Văn Tây took the shot. He was one of the first journalists to document Tuol Sleng following the camp’s liberation by The People’s Army of Vietnam in January 1979. The victim, among the last inmates murdered by The Khmer Rouge, remains unknown to this day.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Across from Building A, in the garden, stands the grisly sight of The Gallows. Built as a school exercise apparatus, Tuol Sleng’s cadres swiftly adapted it into an instrument of torture. They hung prisoners upside down with their hands tied behind their backs. When they subsequently lost consciousness, the cadres pushed their victims’ faces into buckets of putrid water. This awoke them, enabling the interrogation to continue.

For the most part prisoners were accused of all manner of crimes against Cambodia. Moreover, they were forced into naming friends and family members as co-conspirators. Refusing to answer questions resulted in whipping. Crying out during whipping brought on extra punishment. There wasn’t so much as a slither of mercy.

Building B, the largest of the structures, stands as the centre’s main exhibit. As we entered, I was struck all over again by the sea of faces. All full of anguish, confusion and hopelessness. Historians say around 20.000 people passed through S-21 between 1976 and 1979. At times, it feels like every one of them has been represented throughout the various halls.

The majority of the photographs have no names or background info. Just a number the soldiers appointed them upon registration.

Somehow, this just adds to the sadness of it all. Who was the girl, pictured below? What crime could she possibly have committed against The Khmer Rouge? And what became of her? Unfortunately, the odds were not in her favour, because Tuol Sleng had only twelve known survivors.

Security Prison 21, Phnom Penh.

Here and there, we discovered photographs of high profile prisoners. Take Kuy Thuon, for example, Cambodia’s Minister of Commerce at the time of his arrest. When The Khmer Rouge kicked off their genocide campaign, they made sure to clean out their own house first. Anyone whose face didn’t fit, or they felt had the potential to be disloyal, ended up in Tuol Sleng.

The precise nature of the charges against Kuy Thuon remains unclear. Nevertheless, the prison wardens bullied him into a 48 page confession and he was swallowed up in the first wave of executions.

Elsewhere, a giant photograph shows “the wife of Sek Seth”, a secretary of Region 25, southwest. I can only assume he was another discarded member of the party. She sits with a newborn baby in her arms. It’s an awful image that made me feel so utterly dejected I had to escape to a nearby window. And there I stood, gazing out across the peaceful garden until I’d composed myself.

Building B is a tiring onslaught of photographs. Faces come and go as you negotiate the various halls. Some prisoners, I noticed, appear three to four times across the different galleries.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Between the rows of photo boards, there are a number of sobering displays. One glass case presents items of prisoners clothes found piled up in 1979. It also features a pair of cadre uniforms.

In another room, we came across a rusty parade of shackles. Most prisoners were fixed to the walls in their cell, while in larger holding rooms up to twenty people might be shackled to a long iron bar. There were no beds, with inmates simply sleeping on the floor, heads in the opposite direction to discourage communication.

Building C houses a number of long hallways packed with individual cells. Back in 2015 Wonderboy and I had passed through these halls alongside plenty of other visitors.

But this time it was just us, our footsteps echoing as we made our way. Some cells were open red brick creations, others came with heavy wooden doors that creak loudly when you open them for a peek inside.

The cells are tiny, with barely enough room for its occupant to sit, let alone lie down. And this was just how the guards at Tuol Sleng wanted it.

Security Prison 21, Phnom Penh.

In one cell block, we spied a wooden bar attached to the wall. Wardens used it to hang all the various keys needed to keep everything and everyone secure.

They say Tuol Sleng operated with a staff of around 1700, including office workers, interrogators, guards, drivers and night watchmen. A team of chefs meanwhile produced the rice porridge that prisoners received twice a day. There was also a group of farmers onsite who grew the vegetables that would feed the staff.

Director of operations was a man by the name of Kang Kek Iew, more commonly known as Comrade Duch. Eventually, after lengthy court proceedings, he became the first Khmer Rouge leader to be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, he died in jail just a few weeks before Sladja and I visited. He was 77 and had been suffering from lung disease. Due to complications related to COVID-19, the Cambodian government opted to cremate him on the day of death, without any funeral or service. He was not mourned.

Building D hosts a terrifying collection of torture instruments, in addition to some local and international art depicting the harsh reality of daily life at S-21.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

This painting by a Cambodian artist shows the prisoners being showered by a cadre. This simply involved the guard poking a hose between the bars of an open window. One survivor reported weekly showers of this nature. Another claimed to only receive one during his three month ordeal.

It was also in building D that I learned about two particularly tragic stories. Huot Bophana, pictured below, was 25 years old when she arrived at Tuol Sleng. As a young woman in her early twenties, she worked as a rice seller and studied military law. She also gave birth to a baby boy after being raped by a soldier.

Her deep love and marriage to a distant cousin led to her arrest and imprisonment. Bophana had written her husband dozens of love letters. This, The Khmer Rouge said, was proof of “illegal expressions of love over revolution”. Her story forms the basis of a book, Love in the time of The Khmer Rouge, as well as a film, Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy.

Cambodian soldiers caught New Zealander Kerry Hamill (bottom right) while sailing in Cambodian waters. It was a fatal mistake of wrong place at the wrong time when his yacht strayed off course. Consequently, he ended up in Tuol Sleng where The Khmer Rouge accused him of working as a CIA spy.

During his interrogation, Hamill responded to questions about who he was working for with answers such as ”Colonel Sanders!” This remained his defiant approach right to the bitter end. You can read more about Hamill’s story in this article from Post Magazine.

Security Prison 21, Phnom Penh.

As we exited the compound that day, I couldn’t help but notice the empty chair and desk in the main garden. In 2015 this is where Wonderboy and I met Chum Mey, one of Tuol Sleng’s twelve survivors. He had been greeting visitors and signing copies of his book, Survivor.

Chum Mey was a 48 year old motor mechanic when, in October 1978, The Khmer Rouge arrested him. Accusing him of working as a spy, they killed his wife and son before transferring him to Tuol Sleng.

According to the man himself, he survived because of his ability to repair sewing machines. A skill, he says, that made him useful to the cadres. Chum Mey is now 91 years old, so it’s no surprise that he didn’t manage to maintain his museum appearances during the pandemic.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Despite the obvious discomfort one feels when visiting Tuol Sleng, I certainly don’t regret either of my visits. Furthermore, I genuinely wanted to add this site to my archives and not shirk away from the grim details.

After all, I have written extensively about temples, cafes, restaurants and beaches. But to truly understand Cambodia and its people, you really do have to confront the country’s dark history. Thanks for seeing this journey through with me.

I’ve written a bunch of articles about Cambodia’s genocide years. You may also want to check out my pieces on:

Phnom Sampeau Killing Caves (Battambang)

The Abandoned Villas of Kep

Dy Proeung’s Miniature Replicas of Angkor (Siem Reap)

Wat Thmey Pagoda (Killing Fields Siem Reap)

For more info on my adventures in and around the Cambodian capital, have a leaf through my other reports from Phnom Penh. 

Like these? Then why not have a look at my articles from across Cambodia.

I’ve been living, working and traveling all over the world since 2001. So why not check out my huge library of travel reports from over 30 countries.