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Before
the Khmer Rouge period, this site housed the Tuol Svay
Prey secondary school. The Khmer Rouge transformed the school into the Khmer Rouge's main interrogation and
torture centre for political prisoners, called S.21, short for Security Office
21. The classrooms on the ground and first floors were divided up into
separate cells, whereas the ones on the second floor were used for mass
detentions. You can also see the torture instruments used by the
interrogators. They photographed all their victims. The walls of many of
the rooms are covered with a selection of those mug shots of former inmates.
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As the centre is left almost intact, it takes little imagination to
picture how the prisoners, whose countless photographs line the walls,
must have experienced their detention. There are also paintings by artist
Vann Vath that depict the torture of
prisoners during the Pol Pot regime. Vann Vath was one of the few
prisoners that left the torture centre alive. When the Khmer Rouges
discovered his painting talent, they kept him alive to produce official
paintings.
After a visit to this museum, consider a visit to one of the execution
sites in Chheung Ek, 15 km to the northwest of Phnom Penh.
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