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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