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Violence

S-21, Tuol Sleng

“Smashing” Internal Enemies Previous International Response to Khmer Rouge Rule Next

  • Photos of the S-21 prison taken in October 2012. —Lucian Perkins for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

  • —Lucian Perkins for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

  • —Lucian Perkins for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

  • —Lucian Perkins for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

  • —Lucian Perkins for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Victims of the S-21 Prison

Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison Victims of the S-21 Prison

  • Chan Youron, teacher —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Dy Say, student —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Tep Suo Bopha, bank executive —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Dub Yun, engineer —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • In a 1976 letter to a subordinate, S-21 commander Kaing Geuk Eav authorizes “hot torture methods…even if [they] may cause death.” His sign-off: “With warm revolutionary fraternity!” —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Sok Dich —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Christopher Delance is one of the few Westerners known to have died after being imprisoned at S-21. A US citizen, he was seized in 1978 after his yacht entered Cambodian waters. —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Vat Sreng, doctor —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Nou Khan, medic —Documentation Center of Cambodia

  • Chhum Pon Nakk —Documentation Center of Cambodia

The most notorious of the 189 known interrogation centers in Cambodia was S-21, housed in a former school and now called Tuol Sleng for the hill on which it stands. Between 14,000 and 17,000 prisoners were detained there, often in primitive brick cells built in former classrooms. Only 12 prisoners are believed to have survived.

S-21 confined mostly “elite” prisoners from the Khmer Rouge’s own ranks. Their jailers kept meticulous records, taking black-and-white mug shots of prisoners on entry, and used electric shocks, beatings, and water poured in the nose to extract elaborate written confessions to real and imagined offenses. Being in the pay of the CIA or the Vietnamese or a purged Khmer Rouge figure were commonly forced confessions.

Bou Meng, S-21 Survivor

Bou Meng, S-21 Survivor Bou Meng, S-21 Survivor Bou Meng, S-21 Survivor

  • —US Holocaust Memorial Museum

    Bou Meng, a former S-21 inmate, survived by producing propaganda paintings for Khmer Rouge authorities.

  • —Documentation Center of Cambodia

    Ma Yoeun, wife of Bou Meng, in her S-21 mug shot. She was arrested while pregnant and imprisoned with him at S-21. She did not survive.

  • —Documentation Center of Cambodia

    Survivors of the S-21 prison gather in front of a building there at a 1980 reunion after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge. From left: Chum Mey, Ruy Nea Kong, Iem Chan, Heng Nath, Bou Meng, Phan Than Chan, and Ing Pech.

Some prisoners died at S-21 from their mistreatment, but most others were executed at a nearby killing center known as Cheoung Ek. Deaths were sometimes recorded with photos of corpses.

Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21

Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21 Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21 Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21 Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21 Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21 Bou Meng’s Paintings of S-21

  • After he was freed from S-21, Bou Meng produced a series of paintings showing the range of crimes committed at the prison. Prisoners were brought to S-21 in blindfolds. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

  • Forced to confess, prisoners often falsely admitted to guilt. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

  • Bou Meng was made to paint portraits of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders for propaganda purposes while he was imprisoned. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

  • Interrogators sometimes doused the open wounds of prisoners with saltwater. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

  • Prisoners were marched to a nearby “killing field” at night and in secret. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

  • Bou Meng recalls a happy time when he and and his wife, Ma Yoeun, were together before 1975. —Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives, Rutgers Office

Suspicion and distrust within the Khmer Rouge ranks mounted, spurred in part by the failure to meet the unattainable goals for rice production dictated by the Four-Year Plan. Failing to perform one’s duty for Angkar was treason.

Paranoia about hidden agents for Vietnam, Thailand, and the CIA also fed the frenzy of roundups. In Khmer Rouge justice, it was not enough to “smash” one suspect figure—that person’s subordinates and family had to be eliminated too. In this way, thousands of Khmer Rouge cadres and the people around them were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, and executed. Significant numbers of one-time Khmer Rouge loyalists, fearing for their lives, defected across the border to Vietnam.
 
But ultimately it was not the Khmer Rouge’s violence against fellow Cambodians that brought the regime down. It was war against neighbors. In 1977, the Khmer Rouge began launching armed incursions into Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. Often the goal was to regain territories that had been ruled by the Khmer Empire centuries earlier.

In late December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-fledged invasion of Cambodia, sending tanks and thousands of ground troops across the frontier. Khmer Rouge fighters fell back in disorder.

On January 7, 1979, Vietnamese forces entered a largely deserted Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge era was over.

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