- Address: 13 street, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
- Phone: + (8552) 321 60 45
- Website: www.tuolsleng.com
- Foundation date: 1980 y.
In the mysterious and mysterious country of Cambodia , in addition to monuments of architecture and ancient temples, there are also monstrous evidence of very near history, such as the museum of genocide Tuol Sleng.
History of the Museum
The museum of genocide Tuol Sleng is also called S-21 prison. Today's museum is the five buildings of the former children's school in Phnom Penh, which have become a prison and a place of torture and execution of many thousands of people. From Khmer, the museum's name is translated as "strychnine hill" or "hill of poisonous trees".
Tuol Sleng was founded in 1980 in the capital of Cambodia, where in the bloody period of the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 was located the "Security Prison 21". Here at every corner of the museum there are signs "Do not smile", and it is unlikely that this can be done in the atmosphere of such energy.
In addition to the graves in the courtyard and the gallows, in each class there are dozens of tiny cells measuring 1x2 meters, wells with electric wires and crossbars. Many classes, at the request of relatives of the victims, became memorials. The hulls are wrapped in hundreds of meters of barbed wire, before it was under tension. This is the memory of the surviving people, it is not customary to talk here, every stone here reminds us of the pain, blood and death of innocent people.
History of Tuol Sleng
With the rise of the Khmer Rouge led by dictator Paul Later, four months after the end of the civil war, the middle school turned into a prison. Historians assume that its prisoners were from 17,000 to 20,000 people, exact data, of course, are unknown. At the same time, there were about 1500 prisoners in the prison, but they did not stay long. As a rule, these were soldiers serving the former regime, monks, teachers, doctors and many others. Among them were several hundred foreigners who had not managed to leave the country. Only about 6,000 photos of the victims and some of their personal belongings have survived. People were cruelly tortured, kept in chains with blindfolds, starved to death.
In early 1979, the sadistic regime was overthrown by Vietnamese troops, the country was freed from dictatorship, and in S-21 prison only 7 people were found surviving. It was decided to leave the school without changes and repairs, and a year later a memorial museum was opened in it. In the schoolyard there are burials of the last 14 victims, they were tortured to death in the last hours of the liberation of the capital, the rest were buried in the so-called "death fields" .
Pol Pot and the remnants of sadistic detachments until 1998 were hiding in the tropical jungles of Cambodia and Thailand, a crazy dictator died on April 15. Thirty years after the abolition of the bloody regime, on March 30, 2009, Kang Kek Yehu (he was the head of the Tuol Sleng prison) was tried and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
How to get to the museum of genocide?
Tuol Sleng is located near the Independence Monument in the heart of the city. You can get there by public transport on tuk-tuk for $ 2-3 or you can walk from the bus stop of flight No. 35. The museum is open from 8 am to 11:30 and from 14:30 to half past five.
The entrance to the museum is on the west side of 113th Street. The excursions are conducted by relatives of former prisoners. In the video hall of the museum, two times a day, a documentary film about the cruel crimes of the Polotovites is shown.
For any foreign tourist, the ticket costs $ 3, Cambodians are free. You can make free photo and video. Some of the human rights organizations also provide financial assistance to the museum.
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