Betsy and I visited this musem in Phnom Penh. It was a high school converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. Only 7 of the prisoners survived.
Below is the text from the flyer.
Apologies for typos.
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S-21, located in Tuola Svay sub-distric south of Phnom Penh, covers an area of 600 x 400 meters. During the KR regime it was enclosed by two folds of corrugated iron sheets, all covered with dense, electrified barbed wire, to prevent anyone from escaping the prison. Houses around the four school buildings were used as administration, interrogation and torture offices.
All the classrooms of Tuol Sleng high school were converted into prison cells. All the windows were enclosed by iron bars , and covered with barbed wire to prevent possible escape by prisoners. the classrooms on the ground floor were divided into small cells .8 x2 meters each, designed for single prisoners. The rooms on the top floors of the four buildings, each measuring 8 x6 meters, were used as mass prinson cells. On the middle floors of these buildings, cells were built to hold female prisoners.
At first, the interrogations were conducted in the houses around the prison. However, because women taken to the interrogation rooms were often raped, in 1978, a flormaer teacher decided to convert Building B for use as an interrogation office as it made it easier to control interrogation processes.
The number of workers in S-21 totaled 1720. Within each unit, there were several sub-units composed of male and female children ranging from 10 to 15 years of age. These young children were trained and selected by the KR regime. Most of them strted out as normal before growing increasingly evil.
the medical personnel were untrained and mostly children.
The victims in the prison were taken from all walks of life and all parts of the country. The civilian prisoners composed of workers, farmers, engineers, technicians, intellectuals, professors, teachers, students, an deven ministers and diplomats. Moreover whole families of the prisoners, from teh bottom on up, including new born babies, were taken there en masse to be executed.
Reports show a total of 10,499 prisoners, not including the 2,000 children estimated to have been killed by the same report. The prison held on average 1,200 and 1,500 at any time, Duration of imprisonment ranged 2-4 months although some important political prisoners were held between 6 an d7 months.
The prisoners were kept in their respective small cells and shackled with chains fixed to the walls or the concrete floors. Prisoners held in the large mass cells had one or both of their legs shackled to short or long pieces of iron bar. prisoners were fixed on alternating sides, so they had to sleep wiht their heads in opposite directions.
Before the prisoners were placed in the cells they were photographed, and detailed bilgraphies of their childhood up to the date of their arrest were recorded. Then they were stripped to their underwear. Everything was taken away from them.
Every morning at 4:30 am all the prisoners were told to remove their shorts, down the ankles, for inspection by prison staff. then they were told to do some physical exercise just by moving their hands and legs up and down for half an hour. The prisoners had to defecate into small iron buckets and urinate into small plastic buckets. They were required to ask permission from the prison guard in advance of relieving themselves; otherwise they were beaten or received 20 to 60 strokes with a whip as punishment. Regulations were poasted as follows:
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions. Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide facts by making pretexts of this and that. YOu are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares thwart the revolution.
4. you must immediately answer my questions wihtout wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you mus tnot cry at all.
7. Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something. You must do it right away without protesting.
8. If you disobey any point of my regustions you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
Prisoners were bathed by being rounded up into a collective room where a tube of running water was placed through the window to splash water on them. Bathing was irregular...unhygienic living conditions caused prisoners to become infected with diseases like skin rashes and others. There was no medicine for treatment.
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