S21 - Toul Sleng

Today we visited Toul Sleng Prison, identified as prison S21 by the Khmer Rouge. Thousands of political prisoners and government officials were sent here to be tortured and killed. Out of over 20,000 victims, 7 survived.








Barbed wire was placed over the face of the buildings so that prisoners could not commit suicide to avoid torture. The wooden beam in the courtyard was used to tie prisoners up and dunk them upside down into cauldrons of water. 14 sets of remains were discovered when the camp was overtaken. Those victims have been interred in the courtyard. Thousands more were sent off to the killing fields to be buried in mass graves. 5-10 prisoners a night were randomly selected for execution to enforce a sense of fear.













The prison contains large detention rooms, individual torture chambers and isolation cells too small for me to lay down in. The intimacy of this process is distinctly different from the gas chambers and cattle cars of the Holocaust. All of this took place in a local high school, which also lends a certain eeriness to the history. All the prisoners were cataloged upon arrival so there are displays of all the victims at the museum. When I took a picture of one of these displays, my camera recognized the 22 faces pictured. When I uploaded the picture, iphoto asked me to name those 22 faces. Odd that technology can recognize humanity where people have failed.













As an activity at Prek Eng 2, we brought visors for the kids to decorate. It was great for us because the kids wrote their names on them, which helps us remember each of them. And Danet, pictured here, put my name on hers, too. They had a lot of fun personalizing their names, and the artistic ability really showed. The kids of Central Vineyard made a banner with their hand prints and names to give to the PE2 kids. The PE2 kids really enjoyed that and thought it an especially nice gift. We are trying to foster that connection between the two communities and are working on projects to help all the folks at Central Vineyard know the kids of Prek Eng 2.