S-21: A Legacy of Torture and Genocide
S-21, also known as Tuol Sleng, was once a bustling high school in Phnom Penh—Ponhea Yat High School—before it was transformed into a site of unimaginable horror. When the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia in 1975, marking the beginning of what they called "Year Zero," they repurposed the school into a prison and interrogation center for those labeled enemies of the regime.
Calling it an "interrogation center," however, barely scratches the surface. Tuol Sleng became one of the most brutal and lethal prisons in modern history—a place where torture, dehumanization, and execution were routine. It stands as one of the darkest chapters in Cambodia’s past, and among the worst atrocities since the Holocaust.
In 1975, the school’s transformation was swift and chilling. Classrooms were gutted and converted into tiny cells or torture chambers. Barbed wire sealed off the grounds, and mesh was strung across upper corridors to prevent prisoners from jumping to their deaths. Of the 1,720 personnel assigned to run the facility, none held more power—or carried more blood on their hands—than Kang Kek Iew, better known as Comrade Duch, the man who commanded S-21 with ruthless precision.
“It is better to arrest ten people by mistake, than to let one guilty person go free.”
Once the Khmer Rouge seized control, arrests became arbitrary and relentless. People were detained for the most trivial or fabricated reasons—often under the guise of relocation. Many unsuspecting Cambodians, told they were being moved to new homes or work sites, instead found themselves behind the gates of S-21.
But the regime’s cruelty wasn’t limited to outsiders or perceived enemies. As Pol Pot’s paranoia grew, he and his fellow leaders became increasingly suspicious of their own colleagues. Loyalty became meaningless; even Khmer Rouge officials and prison guards found themselves imprisoned and tortured for minor offenses or imagined betrayals. Some were accused of simply working too slowly. Others were punished for killing prisoners without explicit orders.
Execution alone wasn’t enough to satisfy the regime’s twisted sense of justice. At S-21, confessions were mandatory—even when prisoners had no idea what they were accused of. Under brutal torture, they were coerced into admitting to crimes they didn’t commit, creating a paper trail of lies to justify their suffering and eventual execution.
“To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.”
For those imprisoned at S-21, life expectancy was tragically short—ranging from a few days to a few weeks.
Inmates lived under a regime of extreme control and brutality. Every movement, no matter how small—shifting position, turning over, or even relieving oneself—required explicit permission from the guards. Any deviation from the rules, intentional or not, was met with violent punishment: beatings, electric shocks, and further torture. Even crying out during punishment led to additional abuse.
The methods of torture inflicted on prisoners were horrifying. Detainees were subjected to simulated drowning, electrocution, and searing burns from heated metal objects. Some were strung up by their arms—tied behind their backs—until their shoulders dislocated or their limbs broke. Others were hanged until they passed out, only to be revived and tortured again. Fingernails were ripped out as alcohol was poured onto the exposed flesh. Some were suffocated with plastic bags. Others were degraded further—forced to consume human waste.
At least 100 prisoners died after having their blood completely drained to supply transfusions for Khmer Rouge soldiers. And some were subjected to crude, experimental surgeries—vivisections performed without anesthetic, as living prisoners were dissected for medical training.
As previously mentioned, the purpose of this torture was to extract a confession from the prisoner. Also as previously mentioned, most of the prisoners had no idea why they were arrested in the first place. This created a vicious cycle where the guards were equally in the dark, torturing detainees in hopes of uncovering imaginary plots. Under relentless torment, prisoners confessed to anything—spying for foreign powers, sabotage, or other fabricated offenses—just to end the agony. But these confessions rarely satisfied Comrade Duch, the prison’s commander. He routinely dismissed them as lies, ordering further rounds of torture to obtain a "real" confession, creating an endless cycle of pain and false admissions.
Once Duch deemed a confession acceptable, he submitted it to a central committee. From there, a daily “Smash List” was compiled (I’m sure you can come to your own conclusion as to what that means). Once compiled, the committee would send the list to Duch, who would then sign off on it. At that point, a prisoner’s fate depended entirely on who they were.
Former Khmer Rouge officials were executed immediately and buried within the prison grounds. Foreign nationals—Americans, Europeans, Canadians, Australians—were killed and cremated to prevent identification. Vietnamese prisoners were forced into Vietcong uniforms, photographed as enemy spies before being executed. Most others were transported to Choeung Ek, the largest of Cambodia’s notorious Killing Fields, where their lives ended in mass graves.
“The place where people go in and never come out.”
Kang Kek Iew, aka Comrade Duch
On December 25, 1978, the Vietnamese military launched a full-scale invasion of Cambodia, determined to dismantle the Khmer Rouge regime. Less than two weeks later, on January 6, news of the advancing forces reached Comrade Duch. In a final act of brutality, he ordered the execution of the few remaining prisoners at S-21 before fleeing Phnom Penh.
The following day, January 7, 1979, Vietnamese troops entered and liberated the capital.
On January 8, a Vietnamese combat photographer named Hồ Văn Tây, drawn by the overpowering stench of death, arrived at the gates of Tuol Sleng. Inside, he discovered the horrific aftermath of the regime’s crimes—bodies left unburied, torture devices abandoned in place, and blood still staining the floors. The haunting images he captured remain on display today at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, serving as a permanent record of the atrocities committed within those walls.
After disappearing into obscurity, Comrade Duch reemerged under a new identity—as a born-again Christian and preacher. When he was finally arrested in 1999, he claimed that his faith had led him to remorse and that he was prepared to fully confess to his role in the horrors of S-21. True to his word, Duch gave a detailed and chilling account of the atrocities committed under his command.
In 2007, he was formally indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. During his trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), he described in grim detail the inner workings of S-21 and the broader machinery of the Khmer Rouge. In 2010, he was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison. That sentence was later increased to life imprisonment in 2012. He died on September 2, 2020.
Tuol Sleng was once a place of learning—but under the Khmer Rouge, it became the site of one of the most horrific atrocities since the Holocaust. Even Auschwitz, which claimed far more lives overall, had a survival rate of 10–15%. At S-21, the odds of survival were almost nonexistent. Of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people imprisoned there, only 12 survived.
As one factory worker, interviewed in 1989, somberly put it: “The place where people go in and never come out.”
