If  you’re visiting Phnom Penh, Cambodia, you have to visit the Tuol Sleng museum, also known as S21 and the killing fields. Not because it’s a nice or fun experience, but because it is a reminder of a human tragedy of such scale, that it is part of the fabric of what it means to be Cambodian. The experience is awful, hard and will probably leave you teared up, nevertheless, if you want to be closer to understanding Cambodia, S21 and the killing fields is a must. It is a place of such gravity that as visitors to Cambodia, we cannot turn a blind eye to, it’s important to know and understand what happened in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge period (1975 – 1979).

Featured Image: Timgray200, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Tuol Sleng Museum

The Tuol Sleng museum, or Security Prison S21, is a former high school that was converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge genocide. Only 12 of the 17,000 – 20,000 people imprisoned in this facility survived, and as of 2020 only 2 survivors remain. During the Khmer Rouge, people from all walks of life were brought here, from the regime’s political rivals, to people suspected of being educated. Even wearing glasses could have you earmarked for detention at that time.  

Walking through the museum the visitor has an eerie, near constant sense of dread and impending doom. It’s hard to imagine that S21 used to be a school, where children were educated, a place that’s supposed to be safe for society’s most innocent and vulnerable. The former classrooms have been transformed into cells, hastily partitioned with brick and mortar, some of them a meagre 1×2 meters. Others have been transformed into mass cells where the prisoners were shackled to the floor. 

S21 Imagery 

As you move through the museum, there are walls and walls full of pictures of the people that were imprisoned here. Before and after, side by side, taken right before they were brought in and after weeks of torture. The faces of the many victims go from showing pride and inviolability, to deep fear and despair, often so badly beaten they are hardly recognizable. Pictures from young children, with fear in their eyes, through to old ladies, whom in another life might have been your mother, or grandma. One cannot help but feel a deep empathy for the many victims that lost their lives so needlessly here. 

Several paintings on the wall, painted by artist, Vann Nath, show in harrowing detail how the prisoners were tortured. Depictions of nails being ripped out whilst having alcohol poured  over them, waterboarding, and imagery of medical experiments are just a few examples of what is on show. Sadly, Vann, who was one of the 12 survivors of Tuol Sleng, passed away in 2011, however, his motivation to let the world know what happened here couldn’t be any clearer, or more graphic. The shared emotion of the museum visitors is palpable and it’s not unusual to see folk crying as they wander from exhibit to exhibit, it’s hard to imagine this only happened 40 years ago.

At the end of the tour, I am informed by my guide that one of the survivors is at the facility today and she asks if I want to talk to him. Tears well up in my eyes as I see the old man sitting at the place where he spent the worst years of his life. I smile at him and nod, but I can’t find the words to say to him. Numbed by the experience, I can’t think of anything that seems appropriate and I wonder if I open my mouth, would I even be able to form words.

Killing Fields, Choeung Ek

Journey’s End

The journey to Choeung Ek, the killing fields memorial, is around 15km and takes around 30 minutes. The Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre is situated in an old Chinese cemetery and orchard that was chosen by the Khmer Rouge to execute and bury their victims in mass graves. This is the place where most prisoners from Security Prison 21, and other prisons, were transported to, and brutally, found their end. Weapons and ammunition were scarce during the genocide and the regime didn’t waste bullets on their prisoners, instead opting to beat and hack their victims to death before pushing the bodies into open pits. To avoid alerting the unsuspecting prisoners to what was about to happen, loud music was pumped through a public announcement system to drown out the screams. The music that the people heard when they were imprisoned here is played during the audio tour, coupled with the context of the surroundings makes it one of the most chilling things ever heard.

Peaceful Oasis

Upon entering the site, you can’t help but notice that the place has something peaceful about it, with plenty of greenery and a serene atmosphere, the way most cemeteries are. Visitors criss-cross the grounds silently listening to their audio tour that explains the horrors and dark history of the killing fields. Despite the serenity of the place, one is basically walking from mass grave to mass grave. There are various types of grave, including a mass grave found with only people without heads.

At the center of Choeung Ek is a seventeen story glass monument housing 8000 of the human skulls exhumed from mass graves around the site. A powerful reminder of what happened here, not so long ago. 

The audio tour goes on to explain that the area is so littered with human remains that new body parts and clothing are regularly discovered, right beneath visitors’ feet. 

The Killing Tree

The story of the killing tree is so appalling that it’s hard to believe it’s true, but sadly, it is. Here the Khmer Rouge captors killed babies and smaller children. They were held by their feet and bashed against the tree, after which they were directly thrown into the already dug mass grave right next to it. The guards killed the children so they wouldn’t take revenge on their parents deaths in the future, an official policy of the regime. 

To round off your visit, it is worth sitting down somewhere quiet to listen to the personal stories from people that were imprisoned here. 

Options for Getting There

Visiting both attractions (for want of a better word) takes about half a day and both places are so infamous that pretty much any Tuk Tuk driver knows where they are. If you don’t want to make your own arrangements in getting there you can take one of the many guided tours. Expect to pay around $60usd for a fully guided tour in a small group, including transport in an airconditioned vehicle, snacks and an English speaking guide. There are also a number of hop on hop off transport services, with recorded audio information of the sites that operate to and from both places, costing around $15usd for a day ticket.