Museum Tuol Sleng (Phnom Penh, Cambodia - 06/04)

In 1975 the security forces of Pol Pot create out of the school Tuol Svay Prey the high-security prison S21.

This prison got fast the biggest detention and torture centre of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouges register all of their actions in the prison. Every prisoner who arrives at S21 got photographed, sometimes even before and after the tortures. During 1975 and 1978 more than 17000 Cambodians and some foreigners from France, Australia, New-Zealand and America were executed at S21. When the Vietnamese army liberates Phnom Penh in 1979 they find only 7 prisoners alive. These prisoners were mostly painters or photographers and had to work for the Khmer Rouge in the prison. 

The prison consisted of the three former school buildings situated in the city centre of Phnom Penh. During the time of Pol Pot all the inhabitants were forced out of the capital to work as farm workers in the villages. The area next to the school was as-well evacuated so nobody of the locals knew what happened in these buildings.

Above you can see the tiny wooden cells from the second building. On the first floor the cells were made out of stone and on the second and third floor they are wooden cells.

Above you can see one of the torture cells from the first building.

Above you see the mast which was used to hang the prisoner with their arms tight behind back. They were lifted up only attached by their arms. When they got unconscious because of the pain, the gardes put the prisoner's head in the two big water buckets full of dirty water to wake him up immediately and to continue the torture.

The wire shown on the left of the picture was used on the upper levels of the building so the prisoners would not commit suicide by jumping of the building.