Cambodia / Phnom Penh / Tuol Sleng Museum

The Museum of Genocide is located in the former Tuol Svay Prey gymnasium at the 103rd Street, close to the corner of 350th Street. After April 17, 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took the capital, the school buildings served as Security Jail 21 where thousands of people were systematically tortured. Many died during the torture and more than 20,000 people were brought from the jail to the Choeung Ek execution area, where they were murdered and thrown into mass graves. Only seven of the prisoners survived: sculptors who had to produce busts of Pol Pot.

Photo: Khmer Rouge Torture chamber; previously this had been a classroom of Tuol Svay Prey High School.

The museum was set up in 1979, soon after the invasion of the Vietnamese. Walls were decorated with numerous photographs of murdered prisoners as Pol Pot's torturers had, with the same small-minded pedantry met in Hitler's KZ personnel, taken pictures of all the victims.

Also displayed are instruments of torture, often surprising in their primitivity. Obviously high-tech is not needed to inflict inexpressible suffering and pain on other people.

The museum is open daily 7 to 11 am and 2 to 4:30 pm, except on Mondays. Entrance fee is one US Dollar.

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