S-21: School, Prison, Genocide
To put it simply, S-21 is a former high school in Phnom Penh that was converted into a prison by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge after seizing control of the city during Cambodia’s Year Zero. Ponhea Yat High School was renamed Tuol Sleng and would eventually become a security center for the systematic interrogation of inmates, and intended to hold enemies of the regime.
But “interrogation” is a very generous term. It instead became one of the deadliest prisons in history, and the worst atrocity since the Holocaust.
In 1975, the Tuol Sleng school was converted into the prison we know today. Barbed wire ran across the walls, classrooms were partitioned into tiny cells or converted into torture chambers, and wire netting was placed over exterior corridors to prevent suicides. And of the 1,720 staff brought in to work the prison, the most important appointment was that of Kang Kek Iew, aka Comrade Duch, commander of S-21.
“It is better to arrest ten people by mistake, than to let one guilty person go free.”
A Khmer Rouge saying that they fully embraced. Once in power, The Khmer Rouge would arrest anybody for virtually anything. Many of them under false pretenses, as Cambodian citizens were told they were being relocated, only to end up at S-21.
But these indiscriminate arrests were far from limited to anyone not allied with the Khmer Rouge. As time went on, Pol Pot’s paranoia grew. Him and his fellow leaders became increasingly suspicious of their own colleagues, resulting in many Khmer Rouge officers and guards becoming prisoners themselves for even the smallest infractions. These ranged from simply being lazy on the job, to beating prisoners to death without permission.
However, rather than simply executing prisoners for their supposed crimes, guards at S-21 were required to have the prisoners confess to their crimes first. And even though many prisoners had no idea why they had been arrested in the first place, confessions were still extracted in horrendous ways.
“To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.”
The average life expectancy of an S-21 prisoner ranged from a few days to a few weeks.
Prisoners were required to follow extremely strict rules. Any action by a prisoner including relieving themselves, sitting up, turning over, or even shifting their weight, required the permission of the Khmer Rouge guards. Anyone who failed to get permission would be punished by flogging or electric shock, and any who cried out while being punished, were punished more.
Mock drowning. Electric shock. Prodded with searing hot metal instruments. Hung from gallows until the onset of unconsciousness. Having their hands tied behind their back and being suspended from the ceiling until their limbs broke. Pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds. Suffocated with plastic bags. Prisoners were sometimes forced to eat human feces and drink human urine. At least 100 detainees died after having all of their blood drained, so that wounded soldiers could receive transfusions. Medical experiments were performed on certain prisoners where patients were sliced open and had organs removed with no anesthetic, as live prisoners were used for surgical study and training.
As previously mentioned, the purpose of this torture was to extract a confession from the prisoner. And as also previously mentioned, most of the prisoners had no idea why they were arrested in the first place. This created a domino effect where the guards didn’t know what they were looking for either, and prisoners would confess to the most absurd and insignificant crimes just to stop the pain. Only for Duch to read the report, declare it to be fake, and order more torture in order to get a “real” confession.
Once Duch was satisfied, he would send his report to a committee, who would compile that day’s “Smash” list (I’m sure you can come to your own conclusion as to what that means). Once compiled, the committee would send the list to Duch, who would then sign off on it. At that point, a prisoner’s fate depended entirely on who they were.
Former Khmer Rouge officials were killed on the spot and buried in the courtyard. Any foreigners, such as Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and Australians, were killed and their bodies burned to prevent identification. Vietnamese were made to dress up in Vietcong uniforms and photographed as spies before they were killed. The rest were taken to Choeung Ek, the largest of The Killing Fields.
"The place where people went in, but never came out."
Kang Kek Iew, aka Comrade Duch
On Christmas Day 1978, the full might of the Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia. When Comrade Duch received the news on January 6, he ordered the execution of all remaining prisoners, and fled the city. The next day, the Vietnamese army took Phnom Penh.
On January 8, 1979, a Vietnamese combat photographer named Hồ Văn Tây followed the stench of rotting corpses to the gates of Tuol Sleng. The photos of what he saw when he entered the site are exhibited to this day in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
After going into hiding, Duch converted to Christianity and became a preacher. When he was arrested in 1999, he declared his religion made him repentant and that he would confess to all his crimes. And that he did. In 2007, Duch was formally charged with War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, and during his trial, he provided detailed accounts of what happened inside S-21 and the Khmer Rouge regime. In 2010, Duch was convicted by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was then extended in 2012 to life imprisonment. He died on September 2, 2020.
It was at a school where one of the worst crimes since the Holocaust took place. Even Auschwitz, though it killed far more people overall, had a higher survival rate at 10% - 15%. Of the 15,000 to 20,000 people imprisoned at S-21, only 12 survived.
A factory worker in a nearby compound, interviewed in 1989, referred to S-21 as "the place where people went in, but never came out."
