S21

This morning I went to S21. It is one of 180 or so interrogation centres that were located across Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge dickheadery in the 70s. It was originally an old high school. It's name is Tuol Sleng, which was actually the name of the primary school next door. The original school was called Chao Ponhea Yat High School, but Tuol Sleng translates to Hill of the Strychnine Tree, which sounds scarier. In the courtyard they had various mango trees from when it was a school, demonstrating that someone had at least one good idea in Cambodia in that period. In true holocaust fashion, the weather was perfect.

Of the 14000 people who were processed through the prison, bugger all survived. It is commonly stated that there were 7 survivors, but this is incorrect. 179 others  were released at different times before the place was liberated but it's unknown if they survived the rest of the regime; and five kids survived as well.

The place consists of 4 buildings. All of them are almost completely open to the public. There are signs all over stating "no pokemon game here".

The first building was for important prisoners. High ranking government officials from both the previous ruling party and the Khmer Rouge. Each cell was preserved as it would've been, with a photo on the wall of the final occupant as they were found. The tile floors are stained brown with blood and decaying body juices. It doesn't stink or anything and I don't really understand how tiles can stain, but they have. The rooms have a metal bed frame, some shackles, an ammunition box for a toilet and sometimes a writing desk for writing confessions. I don't actually know what these rooms would've been when it was a school. They were too large and segregated to be offices and too small for classrooms.

Building B was definitely originally classrooms. They were decent sized ones too. The guards knocked holes in the walls and built pretty shoddy cells inside out of brick. 11 cells to a classroom. Some would argue this is how all schools should be. Not me though, of course. The cells were about 6ft long by 3ish feet wide. Block C was the same deal but the cells were wooden.

On the walls where the hooks for the keys used to hang there are numbers. In one place the numbers had been scratched into the wall as a tally: I  II III  IIII  IIIII etc. Apparently the guard couldn't write numbers. If they'd kept it as a school they could've helped the dumb bastard. Later another guard came along and wrote the numbers in paint.

In the courtyard outside buildings A and B, amongst the mango trees, there are 14 white stones marking the graves of the last 14 people to die there. They're the only ones to have recieved a proper Buddhist burial (cremation).

Amongst the cells were photos of the victims. Most of the records were destroyed but they didn't have time to destroy all of them. There are literally thousands of photos left. Confessions were obtained and recorded meticulously through torture. The torture was also applied under strict rules, although they did seem to have some leeway to get creative. Beatings, starvation, water boarding (if you're American ignore this one, it's not a torture according to you lot), electrocution, hanging, humiliation and dismemberment were all on the cards.

If a prisoner died, however, the interrogator or guard was likely to become a prisoner him or herself. Including if they committed suicide. Prisoners were only allowed to die when it was ordered, which was after they'd (almost always falsely) confessed. They'd rat out anyone and everyone. In turn those people would be rounded up and repeat the process. Anything for a quick death.

One guy managed to kill himself during an interrogation by stabbing himself in the neck with a pen. Another one got hold of the kerosene lamp and poured the oil on himself. Another escaped from his cell and dived off the verandah. They put up barbed wire after that.

If someone looked like dying before they were supposed to, they'd call for a medic. They'd killed all the doctors though, so some bloke would rock up and pour salt water on the wounds. Other prisoners, instead of being killed outright, would undergo "destruction for blood". They'd literally bleed them dry, I assume because the military needed blood.

There were also some foreign nationals imprisoned there, including Aussies and Kiwis. Most of them were sailors who had drifted into Cambodian waters accidentally and been picked up. They were forced to confess to being CIA operatives and had to rat people out, but of course they had nobody to rat out.

One Kiwi bloke, Kerry Hamill, confessed that his superior, Colonel Sanders, had been working directly with him and reporting back to General Ruse. Good sense of humour considering the circumstances!  He also implicated a Mr S Tar, which was believed to be a coded message back to his mum to let her know he was thinking of her before he died. Her name is Esther.

The final building contained paintings by Vann Nath (pronounced one nut).he was one of the 7 adults that survived at liberation. He was kept alive as he was a talented artist. He had to paint pictures of Pol Pot. If the likeness wasn't very good, he'd have been killed. But the shitty artworks weren't allowed to be destroyed as destroying even a rubbish likeness was a death sentence. Instead they'd bury it whole.

I suppose I won't write anymore. This is getting long. I apologise that it's probably boring. I mostly write it for myself, so I remember. The poo stories are for you, 7 people that read this blog. 

I remember I titled a previous blog as "people who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" or whatever. Maybe the Auschwitz one. I think that quote is probably bullshit. Remember or not, people will repeat it. These morons that wrecked this country all studied in Paris in the 50s and 60s. They definitely remembered the past, it was only 5 or 10 or 15 years earlier that the Nazis got up to no good. They'd all studied communism, they knew exactly what had happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin when they collectivised the farms. They were modelling their shitty system off China's Great Leap Forward. Same shit! It doesn't matter if you remember or not.

At least I'll have something to do in Syria in 15 years time.

Photos:

No pokemon

Great day to visit a holocaust - building A.

14 graves + plus mango trees.

Above the door were air vents, which were boarded up to muffle the screams.

Cell

Rules

Cell

Those pots were full of poo and water. When the prisoners were being strung up, if they passed out they'd dunk their heads in that to revive them.

Map of evacuations of cities into the country side. The left is the original, the right are the evacuations the following year. Cities had to be abandoned.

The Kiwi bloke (on the right) and his American mate.

Cells

Cells

Cells

Dumbass that can't write numbers.

Took a photo of this dude because I was shocked by his shirt. It's the sort of terrible shirt I'd have worn as a kid.

I took a photo of this bloke because his eyes are looking up and to the right and I was wondering what was going on that made him look away.

The memorial, in the courtyard outside buildings C and D