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Reality Check No. 4: The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum

From the time Toe and D found out that we wanted to go to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, they kept asking us if we were certain we wanted to go. Padma knew that it would be an upsetting experience but she was determined to learn more about the Cambodian people. While I doubted whether I could stomach the experience, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go Toul Sleng with Padma. My only condition was that no guide should accompany us. I did not want to hear anecdotes of the Khmer Rouge atrocities from the guide.

Despite all mental and emotional preparation for the visit to the museum, what I saw and experienced in Toul Sleng greatly disturbs me until today. I ask myself whether human beings are capable of such evil.

According to the museum pamphlet, Toul Sleng (which literally means Poisonous Hill) was originally a High School called Ponhea Yat that was built in 1962. In May 1976, the Khmer Rouge converted Ponhea Yat into a security institution “designed for interrogation and extermination of anti-Angkar elements” and was know as Security Office 21 or S-21. There were 54 interrogation units in S-21. “Within each unit, there were several sub-units composed of male and female children ranging from 10 to 15 years old. These young children were trained and selected by the KR regime to work as guards at S-21. Most of them started out as normal before growing increasingly evil. They were exceptionally cruel and disrespectful towards the prisoners and their elders.”

The Khmer Rouge leader, Saloth Sar better known as Pol Pot, led a campaign called “Year Zero” to eliminate capitalism from society. His way of doing this was to kill all Cambodian intellectuals, professionals, ministers, diplomats and their families (including babies). This would leave him with a society composed mostly of children whom he intended to indoctrinate with his own interpretation of communist theories. (See www.csuchico.edu.) Hence, the presence of child workers in S-21.

According to Toe, Pol Pot was influenced by Mao Tse Tung. Pol Pot copied how Mao Tse Tung implemented the Cultural Revolution. Only, Pol Pot was a hundred times harsher in the way that he implemented his “Cultural Revolution”. Worse, Pol Pot caused Cambodians to eliminate one another. There are many accounts of children followers of Pol Pot reporting to the Khmer Rouge that their parents, siblings and relatives are anti-Angkar and having them killed.  D told me that Cambodians come from one race and have only one language. It is therefore tragic that the Khmer Rouge had caused such dissent within this homogenous society.

As our car approached the gates of Toul Sleng, we noticed that everyone coming out of the museum looked disturbed and some were even teary-eyed. At the entrance of the museum, we saw these signs.

 

From its looks, there is really nothing extraordinary about the first building we visited in the Toul Sleng museum. In fact, it looked like an old run down school building in the province. Despite its ordinary appearance, I felt a malevolent vibe about me the minute I stepped into the building. I could not breath and my ears were ringing. I though that I was the only one who felt the vibes. It turns out, however, that all the other visitors had a similar feeling. Padma, for one, had to step out as she felt like gagging. Some ladies and men in another group were crying and would step out of the building to get away from it all. The worse part came when the guide leading the group behind us told that group that the room we were in was where prisoners were tortured and the browns spots on the ceiling were the dried blood of the prisoners who died. When the guide started to explain how the torture was done, Padma and I quickly left the building and headed towards the next building.

In the next building, there are, on display, hundreds of portraits of the prisoners in S-21 and their clothing. According to the pamphlet, all the prisoners would be photographed and “detailed biographies of their childhood up to the dates of their arrest would be recorded”. Although we tried to avoid the guides, the Pandoras in us could not help but listen when they started to speak.  The guide of the group behind us pointed to a chair that was allegedly a gift from the Chinese Government to the Khmer Rouge. She said that the prisoners were made to sit on the chair when they were being photographed. At the back of the chair is a blunt pin that pointed directly at the back of the head. On the seat of the chair is a metal strip. The blunt pin and the metal strip were charged with electricity. If the prisoner moved even just slightly while being photographed, he or she would get electrocuted.

Most of the photographs showed the prisoners with blank stares. Some prisoners would be asked to smile while being photographed and still they would have blank stares. The only prisoners who did not have blank stares, but whose eyes showed great sorrow and terror, were the mothers who were forced to hold their babies while sitting on the chair. To this day, the image of a woman (allegedly the wife of the Cambodian foreign minister) holding her less that one year old baby haunts me.  To view some of the portraits of the prisoners, click on this.

Also on display were paintings showing the life of prisoners at S-21. The guide informed us that the painter, Vann Nath, was a prisoner whose life was spared in order to paint propaganda material for the Khmer Rouge.  After the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime, Vann Nath painted the atrocities that took place at S-21. Click on this, to read more about Vann Nath.

In another room in the building, there are make-shift chambers were prisoners were isolated. In this area, I felt a sense of deep despair, hopelessness and insanity as I tried to imagine what it was like for the prisoners.   When they felt most alone and helpless, they must have questioned whether there was a God and why they were made to  endure such a fate.   Strangely, instead of doubting whether there was a God,  all I could think of and do in those chambers was to pray for those who suffered in those chambers.  When I later asked Padma what she did in those chambers, I was not surprised to find out that she also prayed.

On the second floor of that building, there are communal quarters. In those quarters, prisoners were made to lie on their backs and side by side with other prisoners while all their legs were shackled on the walls. The prisoners were not allowed to move while sleeping.  If they moved without prior permission from the guard, the prisoners we electrocuted or whipped. Outside the quarters, the balcony was blocked by metal mesh. Initially I thought that the mesh was to prevent the prisoners from escaping. According to guide, the mesh was actually placed there to prevent prisoners from committing suicide.  Evidently, the torturers were very cruel and felt a certain satisfaction in making the prisoners suffer. Otherwise, the torturers should have just killed the prisoners without making their lives miserable.

As we were leaving Toul Sleng, Padma told me that her thirteen year old daughter visited Toul Sleng with Padma’s mom and sister. Padma said that she wished that she had been with her daughter at the time she visited Toul Sleng.  Padma was worried about how her daughter was coping with this experience. As for me, I am still reeling from the experience.  Nevertheless, I feel incredibly blessed to have, so far, been spared such atrocities.  I also hope that none of us would ever have to experience such atrocities during our lifetime.

If there is any lesson to be learned from Toul Sleng, it is that we should do our part to put an end to similar atrocities happening in our world and never allow such atrocities to happen again.  When the atrocities  of our world cease,  the suffering and death of the prisoners of Toul Sleng would finally have meaning.  Maybe then, the souls of those who died at Toul Sleng would find peace.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under 'Pinions, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.