Tuol Sleng Prison Phnom Penh

Straight after leaving the Killing Fields we headed to Tuol Sleng Prison which is now the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh . This used to be a secondary school but when the Khmer Rouge banned education , schools were closed and  they never opened again under their rule. The school/museum is split into four buildings, A,B,C and D. 

The photo below is from block A, this is where important prisoners of high rank were tortured and interrogated. Most of the rooms only had one bed in them but some had two. In some of these rooms dead bodies were found on the beds when the building was liberated. These prisoners were killed quickly by the Khmer Rouge when they knew they had lost their power. 

Each block had three floors. In block B, one of the floors was filled with brick cells which had been hastily made in the classrooms. Each classroom, which were of average size, had about 18 cells in it, so you can imagine how tiny and cramped they were. The photo below shows the width of a cell. 

Another floor in Block B had wooden cells in them and on the last floor each classroom was a communal cell with the prisoners being shackled together. Outside this block the walkways were covered in barbed wire to stop the prisoners from committing suicide by jumping to their death.  The barbed wire is eerily still there to this day. 

The entrance to the museum.

Inside the museum there were rows and rows of photos of people who had been killed, a lot of them very young, sometimes whole families would die together. If prisoners did not die while being interrogated they would be taken to the Killing Fields and killed there. There are also copies of confessions and statements both from prisoners and people who worked there, which are very interesting to read. 

The photo below shows the graves of the  last 14 people who were killed in the prison and whose bodies were found inside. 

The man who was in charge of the prison was called Khaing Khek Lev but he is also known as 

Deuch. He has recently been tried and found guilty of his crimes. While in Cambodia we watched a documentary called Brother Number One which tells the story of Kerry Hammill, a New Zealander who was caught and killed by the Khmer Rouge after being taken to Tuol Sleng prison. This documentary also covers the trial of Deuch, it is very good and worth watching if you get the chance.

This was a very sobering visit as you can imagine but one again that needed to be made, just like the visit to the Killing Fields. These events need to be acknowledged and has helped both me and David to understand the history of Cambodia a lot better. Being the age we are, we were aware of  Pol Pot and his regime when it happened but did not fully grasp the extent of what had gone on.