With an estimated 1.7 million victims, I really think that you should visit the notorious Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which was known as the S-21 prison. Yes, it is very upsetting and may even bring to tears but it will make you admire how the people have bounced back with such positive attitudes and it makes you ponder how this could ever have happened at all especially that it occurred in recent history as it was only back in 1976.
According to the locals many of the people who wielded the power to carry out these acts are still free and even more surprising still hold positions in the current government. The setting of this horrific place in a school makes it all the more shocking. The rusty and disused swings and monkey bars still stand desolate in the playground making it even more unbelievable.
Shaped as a horseshoe on the right side of the courtyard are a series of rooms with a photo of some of the guards and prisoners as they are now and a faded sepia photo of them back when this occurred and the story of how they came to end up in this dreadful place. So many of the guards reiterate they were doing their jobs and it was carry out orders or suffer the same fate.
At the rear are the classrooms that have been converted into tiny, cramped and dirty cells for the unfortunates to be kept captive. These are still preserved as they were found with their crudely bricked walls and barred windows. It makes one feel claustrophobic to be looking in without having been locked in there indefinitely.
On the left hand side is the torture devices left as they were found but far more jarring were the meticulous records of the hundreds of photographs of the victims. I found these so moving I still cannot find the words to express my feelings. These poor souls ranged from young children and new born babies through to older people and all age ranges in between. Whole families were targeted including many foreigners but the majority of people taken were intellectuals such as engineers, teachers, farmers many other random people. I will never forget the look of total and absolute despair mirrored in their eyes and captured through the camera lens. I was literally moved to tears.
In one final room there is a map of Cambodia made up of victim’s skulls – fittingly with the Mekong River shown in red – absolutely abhorrent. I really cannot understand how anyone could do this to so many especially as so many were their own people and innocent of any real crime, worse still how did our governments stand by and let it take place? It is beyond comprehension.
I feel that here and the Killing Fields are the worst places that you could possibly choose to visit, that in doing so at least you are doing so out of respect for the victims memories.
by Kez on December 28, 2006
Toul Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21)
Corner of Street 113 and Street 350 Phnom Penh, Cambodia