Heritage site
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
ទួលស្លែង
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (ទួលស្លែង, Tuol Sleng) in Phnom Penh preserves the former S-21 prison of the Khmer Rouge as a memorial to its victims.[1][2] Between 1975 and 1979, 15,000 to 20,000 people were imprisoned there, and only 12 were found alive when the regime fell.[2]
History
The buildings were a high school, Tuol Svay Prey, built in 1962 on a parcel of about 600 by 400 meters (660 by 440 yards).[1][2] Under Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), the Khmer Rouge turned the school into Security Office 21, known as S-21. Classrooms became cells, interrogation rooms and torture chambers, and the compound was enclosed in electrified barbed wire.[2][3] S-21 was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers set up by the regime.[1]
Prisoners were brought from every part of Cambodia, among them members of the Khmer Rouge accused of treason.[2] The museum puts their number at 15,000 to 20,000, and other estimates give about 20,000; very few were ever released.[2][3] S-21 was run by the Ministry of Defense under Son Sen. Its first chief, In Lun (alias Nath), was followed in 1976 by Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch.[2] As Phnom Penh fell in early 1979, Duch fled after ordering that all remaining prisoners be killed. When the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea and Vietnamese troops entered the city, they found 12 survivors at S-21, four of them children.[2]
The prison was part of a far larger loss. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives estimates of the dead under the Khmer Rouge from at least 1.25 million to as many as 3 million, with about 2 million as the working consensus.[3] The Memorias Situadas project of UNESCO's CIPDH puts the toll at no fewer than 1.5 million, about a quarter of the population.[4]
The government of the People's Republic of Kampuchea reopened the site as a museum, inaugurated on April 17, 1980.[1][4] In 2010 the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) convicted Kaing Guek Eav of crimes against humanity and war crimes. He died in 2020 while serving a life sentence.[2][1]
Architecture and layout
Four whitewashed school buildings of three stories stand around a courtyard lined with palms.[3] Building A held rooms used for torture. Buildings B, C and D held prisoner cells and larger rooms for groups of detainees.[4] Some of the smallest cells, built with brick or wooden partitions, measured about 0.8 by 2 meters (2.6 by 6.6 feet).[2]
Art and inscriptions
The museum keeps the prison buildings, prisoner photographs, records, instruments of torture and paintings of the torture that took place there, and it serves as a memorial and a place of learning for Cambodians.[1][5] Building B displays hundreds of photographs of prisoners, and Building D holds the recorded words of victims and perpetrators.[4] The paintings of Vann Nath show life in the prison and the torture used on prisoners. He survived S-21 because he was chosen to paint portraits of Pol Pot.[3] A memorial stupa about 6 meters (20 feet) high was raised in the courtyard in 2015. Black marble plaques around it list the names of all known victims of S-21.[3][4] The graves of the last 14 victims found at the site lie on the grounds.[4]
Significance and conservation
The Tuol Sleng archives were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register in 2009.[6] They hold photographs, prisoner biographies, notebooks, propaganda magazines, forced confessions and other records.[6] A UNESCO-supported project digitized more than 60,000 documents and opened the database to relatives, researchers and the public, and it upgraded the archive and added multimedia rooms where visitors can consult the records.[6]
On July 11, 2025, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee inscribed the Cambodian Memorial Sites: From Centres of Repression to Places of Peace and Reflection on the World Heritage List under criterion (vi). The property links three places that document the Khmer Rouge security system: the former M-13 prison in Kampong Speu, Tuol Sleng and the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.[5][7]
Visiting
The museum is open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. On weekdays, a survivor testimony is presented from 2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.[1][5] Since 2010, the ECCC has brought Cambodians on study tours of Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek and the court complex.[1][5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Wikipedia
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 tuolsleng.gov.kh, History of the Museum - Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Encyclopedia Britannica, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum - History, Description, & Facts (2023-11-08)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Memorias Situadas CIPDH - UNESCO, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum - CIPDH - UNESCO (2019-03-01)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 UNESCO
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 UNESCO, UNESCO and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum launch a digital ... (2021-02-09)
- ↑ UNESCO, UNESCO Congratulates Cambodia on the Inscription of Its ... (2025-07-11)