Review of Tuol Sleng Museum

The buildings here were once a high school but under the rule of the Khmer Rouge they were turned into the largest prison and torture centre in Cambodia. More than 17,000 men, women and children were held here during their rule but when the Vietnamese liberated Phnom Penh only seven people were left alive. The other captives had mainly ended up at the killing fields of Choeung Ek where they had been executed.

When we first got here we went straight to the movie room for the 3pm showing of the documentary "Bophana". The sound quality wasn't great so it would be a good idea to sit near the front but it is well worth seeing. It mainly focuses on the life of Hout Bophana and her husband who ended up intered in Tuol Sleng and executed at Choeung Ek.

After that we took a walk around the classrooms that had been turned into prison cells. There are 4 blocks and each has different displays. The block where we started was centred on the prison guards who had worked at Tuol Sleng. Each had given statements about how they had come to work at the prison. Every display included a picture of the former guard and these were all covered in graffeti in a variety of languages. I couldn't read any of it but can't imagine that it was complementary.

One block contains pictures of every inmate that was detained there. It really demonstates the huge number of people who suffered there and how young so many of the victims were. A further block gives the history of some individual victims along with interviews with members of their family. Many of the family members mentioned that they had discovered the fate of their loved ones after being told that their picture had been seen at Tuol Sleng.