Kept in these shackles, prisoners could only sleep in one position.
Shackles
A torture and isolation room; cells measuring a mere 1mx1.5m.
A female prisoner cradling her baby in her arms, resigned to their fate.By Pamela Phang Kooi Yoong
The Star - Malaysia
Saturday February 25, 2006
We were at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh and our guide Sambath had tears in his eyes. To him, as to many Cambodians, history wasn’t about distant events you read about, but something that turned one’s life upside down.
Sambath remembered the day the Khmer Rouge called on his home.
They dragged his father and second brother out of the house, while his mother hung to the trouser legs of one of the soldiers, begging for mercy. But there was no mercy. Sambath's father told his mother: “Go home. There are still seven more at home to feed and look after. Take care of them.”
Those were the last words he remembered his father saying. Sambath was only four years old at the time but the memories of it still affects him today.
The museum is a place filled with silent ghosts and the echoes of pain and torture. Every step of the way, you’ll find a story to be told. Some people will tell you the place gives off disturbing vibes. My sister, who has always been very sensitive to such things, could not bring herself to walk through the gates. She chose to wait for us outside
The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot took over Cambodia in 1975 and unleashed a reign of terror, systematically torturing and killing an estimated two million people. To this end, they established the S-21 (for Security Office 21) at Tuol Sleng in May 1976. The Ponhea Yat High School was turned into the S-21’s dreaded interrogation chambers.
The classrooms were converted into prison cells. In some, tiny cells (1m x 1.5m) were built, one for each prisoner. Each cubicle had a hole which served as a toilet. The women’s building was covered in barb wire to prevent the inmates from throwing themselves off the top floors and killing themselves.
“There was too much raping, so the ladies preferred to jump from the three-story building when pretending to go to the toilet,” said Sambath.
Two of the most feared persons in all of Cambodia then were Son Sen alias Khieu, the Minister of Defence, and Kang Kek Leu, a mathematics teacher who became the head of the S-21.
Civilian prisoners were dragged here from all over the country, mostly the intellectuals – and anyone wearing a pair of glasses was deemed one. An estimated 17,000 people passed through Tuol Sleng, out of which only seven survived.
We saw rooms with shackles. Often, the prisoners were held in large numbers in one room.
Sambath said they had to ask for permission before they could defecate into iron buckets and urinate into plastic ones.
Put up for all visitors to see today are the (verbatim) rules the prisoners had to heed:
1) You must answer accordingly to my questions – don’t turn away.
2) Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3) You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
4) While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.
5) Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet.
6) If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
Captors did their best to make life hell for the prisoners. Even to change their positions while trying to sleep, the prisoners had first to ask permission. If they did everything accordingly, they were still tortured three times a day just to show that it was useless to defy the Khmer Rouge.
Women were violated as onlookers cheered their rapists on. Fingernails were pulled out and salt rubbed into wounds.
“They killed babies like cricket, tearing them from their mothers and impaling them on bamboo spears or smashing their little heads against tree trunks. They always killed the infants in front of their parents,” Sambath said.
The instruments of torture are on display here: feet shackles, wooden spears, knotted ropes, bats, pipes, iron squeezers, a cobra box, a scorpion box, drills used to pierce the prisoner’s heads, the gallows.
The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of their atrocities. Each prisoner was photographed with a number board. These cover some of the rooms from floor to ceiling – thousands of haunting, black-and-white photographs of men, women and children who came to a grim end here.
I found myself transfixed with horror at this photo of a woman cradling her baby, a tear running down one cheek. There was no shortage of gruesome photos of dead and dying prisoners, most with eyes and mouths wide open.
The atmosphere was awful, depressing. We exited the Museum of Death with relief, glad to welcome the sunshine and fresh air, thankful we live in a time and place other than the one so horribly depicted here. W
Travel tips
AirAsia offers direct flights to Phnom Penh. From there, you can easily hire a moto (motorbike-trishaw) to take you to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
The Museum is located at the corner of Street 113 and Street 350. Admission fee: US$2 (RM8) and US$5 (RM19) with video camera. It is open everyday including holidays, from 8am-5pm, closed at lunchtime. There is a free movie every day at 10am and 3pm.
As a visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum can be a dark experience, it is best to go in the morning or early afternoon so that you can emerge in the restorative rays of the sun.
Sambath remembered the day the Khmer Rouge called on his home.
They dragged his father and second brother out of the house, while his mother hung to the trouser legs of one of the soldiers, begging for mercy. But there was no mercy. Sambath's father told his mother: “Go home. There are still seven more at home to feed and look after. Take care of them.”
Those were the last words he remembered his father saying. Sambath was only four years old at the time but the memories of it still affects him today.
The museum is a place filled with silent ghosts and the echoes of pain and torture. Every step of the way, you’ll find a story to be told. Some people will tell you the place gives off disturbing vibes. My sister, who has always been very sensitive to such things, could not bring herself to walk through the gates. She chose to wait for us outside
The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot took over Cambodia in 1975 and unleashed a reign of terror, systematically torturing and killing an estimated two million people. To this end, they established the S-21 (for Security Office 21) at Tuol Sleng in May 1976. The Ponhea Yat High School was turned into the S-21’s dreaded interrogation chambers.
The classrooms were converted into prison cells. In some, tiny cells (1m x 1.5m) were built, one for each prisoner. Each cubicle had a hole which served as a toilet. The women’s building was covered in barb wire to prevent the inmates from throwing themselves off the top floors and killing themselves.
“There was too much raping, so the ladies preferred to jump from the three-story building when pretending to go to the toilet,” said Sambath.
Two of the most feared persons in all of Cambodia then were Son Sen alias Khieu, the Minister of Defence, and Kang Kek Leu, a mathematics teacher who became the head of the S-21.
Civilian prisoners were dragged here from all over the country, mostly the intellectuals – and anyone wearing a pair of glasses was deemed one. An estimated 17,000 people passed through Tuol Sleng, out of which only seven survived.
We saw rooms with shackles. Often, the prisoners were held in large numbers in one room.
Sambath said they had to ask for permission before they could defecate into iron buckets and urinate into plastic ones.
Put up for all visitors to see today are the (verbatim) rules the prisoners had to heed:
1) You must answer accordingly to my questions – don’t turn away.
2) Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3) You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
4) While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.
5) Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet.
6) If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
Captors did their best to make life hell for the prisoners. Even to change their positions while trying to sleep, the prisoners had first to ask permission. If they did everything accordingly, they were still tortured three times a day just to show that it was useless to defy the Khmer Rouge.
Women were violated as onlookers cheered their rapists on. Fingernails were pulled out and salt rubbed into wounds.
“They killed babies like cricket, tearing them from their mothers and impaling them on bamboo spears or smashing their little heads against tree trunks. They always killed the infants in front of their parents,” Sambath said.
The instruments of torture are on display here: feet shackles, wooden spears, knotted ropes, bats, pipes, iron squeezers, a cobra box, a scorpion box, drills used to pierce the prisoner’s heads, the gallows.
The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous records of their atrocities. Each prisoner was photographed with a number board. These cover some of the rooms from floor to ceiling – thousands of haunting, black-and-white photographs of men, women and children who came to a grim end here.
I found myself transfixed with horror at this photo of a woman cradling her baby, a tear running down one cheek. There was no shortage of gruesome photos of dead and dying prisoners, most with eyes and mouths wide open.
The atmosphere was awful, depressing. We exited the Museum of Death with relief, glad to welcome the sunshine and fresh air, thankful we live in a time and place other than the one so horribly depicted here. W
Travel tips
AirAsia offers direct flights to Phnom Penh. From there, you can easily hire a moto (motorbike-trishaw) to take you to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
The Museum is located at the corner of Street 113 and Street 350. Admission fee: US$2 (RM8) and US$5 (RM19) with video camera. It is open everyday including holidays, from 8am-5pm, closed at lunchtime. There is a free movie every day at 10am and 3pm.
As a visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum can be a dark experience, it is best to go in the morning or early afternoon so that you can emerge in the restorative rays of the sun.
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