Tuol Sleng was earlier a primary school and a lycee (Tuol Svay Prey)
and became, during the regime of Pol Pot, a major place of torture and
death. Classrooms and offices became sites of unspeakable brutalities
to the pserhaps 20,000 prisoners who passed through its gates; it was
one of the most significant centers of the Khmer Rouge system of terror.
Many of the victims had actually been members of the Khmer Rouge, but
were purged from its ranks for a variety of reasons. The photographs of
the prisoners on display are most sobering and unsettling and remind me
of similar visits to Auschwitz and Dachau of the Nazi era in Europe. It
should be remembered, though, that there were many Tuol Slengs and Cheoung
Eks throughout Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime; both stand as memorials
to the countless victims of unspeakable cruelties.
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