Today, I'm taking you to a place steeped in history in Phnom Penh. And a very sad history, unfortunately, as it touches on the heart of all the barbarity for which the Khmer Rouge were notorious.
While visiting the Cambodian capital, I visited one of the city's must-see attractions, the Tuol Sleng prison, which, before being temporarily converted, was a high school…
S-21: The Prison of Horror
S-21 was one of several prisons used to interrogate and torture prisoners of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Tuol Sleng means “the poisoned hill”, not hard to see why…
We are immediately immersed in the atmosphere by seeing the graves of the last 14 corpses found on site when the Vietnamese army liberated Phnom Penh and searched the area.
There is also a sign there displaying the regulations in force at the time of this hell, it is just edifying.
A museum, a memory
Now converted into a museum to bear witness to the horror of the genocide committed within these walls and throughout the country, I silently walk the corridors, look in reverent silence at the metal beds and think of those who did not come out alive from there, including the 14 people whose photos can be seen in these rooms, illustrating in stark terms what the Vietnamese found.
It is estimated that between 15,000 and 20,000 people entered here (including 79 foreigners, most of whom were just tourists intercepted off the southern coast of the country while passing through on a cruise ship…), only 200 people are believed to have left alive, of whom 7 were present at the time of the discovery of the site…
What impresses me most is not these empty rooms, once filled with more than 70 people lying like animals on the floor, it is not these instruments and techniques of torture displayed there, nor even the skulls, the hanging post or these small individual cells improvised in brick or wood, barely 1,50 m long by less than 1 m wide, no, (that makes a long sentence sorry), what touched me most I think, was this succession of portraits , the victims.
A silent visit
Each prisoner was meticulously listed in a file, including a photograph. Among all those exposed eyes staring back at us, we see everyone: young, old, men, women, even children; no one was spared. Sometimes, we can even make out a smile , almost unbelievable…
I visited all the rooms, looked at each portrait as a kind of "tribute" in my own way, in any case as a mark of respect.
I will spend about 2 hours there, in silence.
In some rooms, there is information about the executioners and masters of this painful episode of Cambodian history. Some photos are scratched and have not resisted the anger of the many Cambodians who have gone and still go to Tuaol Sleng to look for the photo of a missing family member.
As I was walking back towards the exit, I was stopped by an old man, one of the survivors who comes here every day to sell his book. Chum Mey, his name, survived thanks to his skills as a mechanic (another survived thanks to his talent for drawing).
I can't imagine what these people had to endure, just as the place seems so calm today, so "clean", and maybe in the end the horror was such that it is ultimately beyond our imagination.
Have you visited this site? What did you feel?
