Tuol Sleng

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over the Svay Prey High School and turned it into Security Prison 21, now called Tuol Sleng.  It became the torture site and prison for over 17,000 people.  The Khmer Rouge exterminated anyone who was educated, even children.  Teacher, journalists, and monks were killed because they might have a mind of their own.  They let the rural farmers live because they were easy to manipulate.  It was horrifying to see a place of learning turned into a prison.  The classrooms had crude brick walls to create individual cells.  Barbed wire lined the outer walls.  Instruments of torture were on display.  The Khmer Rouge documented everything.  They took photos of the prisoners and listed their "crimes."  These photos lined the walls, and I stared at forlorn faces of people who knew they were going to die.  Only 7 men survived the prison.  One of the men wrote a book and was selling it in the yard.  I marveled that he could sit there every day in this horrible place.  He lived because he knew how to fix typewriters, so they kept him alive for his skill. 

There are not many older people in Cambodia because so many were killed.  Everyone has family members who died during Pol Pot's regime.