Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

The former security office 21 was created on orders of Pol Pot in 1975. It was called S-21 and designed for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture and killing after confessions from the detainees were received and documented.

S-21 was previously Toul Sleng Primary School and Tuol Svay Prey High School - the building looks, in design, like any other school that you see around Cambodia which makes what happened in this place even more grotesque and difficult to comprehend.

The classrooms of the four buildings of the school were turned into small cells (0.8 x 2 m), the front of the buildings were covered in barbed wire in order to prevent prisoners from committing suicide by jumping down.

In 1977 - 78 Building "A" was converted into a set of rooms, 6 x 4 m each and the windows were paneled with glass to minimize the sound of prisioners screams while they were being tortured. This area was used for detaining people who were accused of leading an uprising against Pol Pot.

A wooden pole in the courtyard that use to be used by students for exercise was turned into an interrogation and torture machine.

The research into prisoner records of S-21 gave the following number on inmates from 1975 till June 1978:
1975 - 154 prisoners
1976 - 2,250 prisoners
1977 - 2,350 prisoners
1978 - 5,765 prisoners
These figures do not include the children killed by the Khmer Rouge, estimated at 20,000.
Imprisonment in S-21 lasted 2-4 months, political prisoners held between 6-7 months, very few people who entered Tuol Sleng actually survived S-21.

This map illustrates where people were marched out to when the Pol Pot came into power - the cities were evacuated and everyone was put to work in the country side.

There was a photographer at S-21 whose job it was to record everyone who went through, some of the images are now on display in the museum.

Some of the equipment they used to torture the prisoners