S21
If there are ghosts anywhere, then surely it is here in the complex of buildings named S21. April 1975 Pol Pot emptied Phnom Penh and turned the capital of Cambodia into a ghost town. The inhabitants were either sent to the fields or executed. Their fate depended on their usefulness as laborers and their degree of education. Almost all elderly, sick or educated people were killed. Those who conspired or otherwise resisted the regime were sent to S21. An ex school, S21 was the detention and torture capital of Pol Pot’s reign of terror. Maintained as it was found when the regime collapsed, the place is frightening even now.
On the wall of each cell is a black and white photo of what was found when people first came to this place after the terror.
As well as the bigger cells there are smaller holding cells
some with the chains that held the people here
blood spatters are everywhere
Exhibitions show a fraction of the people sent here from children to pensioners
barbed wire to stop people committing suicide, escape wasn’t an option.
Sticking my camera through a hole in a boarded up door this image emerged. Piles of leg irons and a Buddha with it’s head smashed in.
