Tuol Sleng Museum and The Killing Fields, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

In the 1970's, Cambodia was taken over by the Khmer Rouge, a totalitarian Communist regime that conducted a massive genocide, killing an estimated 1-2 million people. The stated goal of the Khmer Rouge was to turn Cambodia into an agrarian society, eliminating social classes. After taking control of the government and expelling the population from the city of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, began killing anyone and everyone who didn’t fit into their plans. This included the wealthy, the educated, people of Chinese or Vietnamese ancestry, people who had worked for former governments or had participated in other political parties, and people with eyeglasses.

Those targeted people who weren’t killed directly were made to live in small villages or camps where they worked in fields for long hours and were given little food – sometimes just one meal of rice soup per day. Many died of starvation and disease during this time. Before we traveled to Cambodia, Robert and I both read First They Killed My Father, a moving description of life under the Khmer Rouge written by Luong Ung, a survivor who was able to settle in America. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, where “political prisoners” were taken to be interrogated and tortured during the Khmer Rough regime. The buildings were first constructed as a school, but the classrooms were turned into prison cells and torture chambers. Today, you can walk through those same classrooms and see photographs of the people who came through there as prisoners. Some of the torture devices and cells are also on display.

Photos of some of the youngest “political prisoners”:
A sign showing an English translation of the “rules” that prisoners at Tuol Sleng were expected to follow:
One of the more difficult rooms for me to experience at the museum was one focusing on people who had worked at the prison, and were interviewed years later about their time there. Many claimed that they knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they felt forced into it out of fear for their own lives. For me, this raised the question: At what point can someone be considered a victim? Is someone who conducts torture because they are fearful of the consequences of not following orders a victim in the same way as the person they are torturing? Is there a difference between believing in AND participating in a genocide, vs. participating without believing? I’m still unsure how I feel about these questions, and I’m not sure there’s an easy answer.

After being interrogated or detained at Tuol Sleng, prisoners were usually transported to the Killing Fields outside Phnom Penh, usually within 30 days of being arrested. The Killing Fields are located about 13 kilometers south of town, next to a school. Here, prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves – men, women, and children alike.

It’s a quiet place, though the sounds of kids playing nearby is a constant reminder that life goes on in Cambodia today. Visitors can walk around viewing the mass graves, many of them labeled. Some are not yet excavated completely.


A tower has been constructed on the site and filled with the skulls that have been recovered. The skulls are sorted by age and gender onto shelves that fill the center of the tower and rise at least ten levels into the air.


Our entire time in Cambodia, as we moved between cities, interacted with locals, and watched life going by, I could not get over how anyone that I saw who appeared to be my age or older would have lived through the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. They might have been part of it themselves, or they might have been among the victims – we were told that every family in Cambodia lost at least one or two members to the regime. How does an individual, and a community, move on from such a horror? What does it take to pick up the pieces and start over again? When I looked at Cambodian children, I wondered how much they know about what happened to their parents, their aunts and uncles and grandparents, and how it affects them as they grow up in this so recently devastated country. I had a great deal of admiration for the generosity and kindness of the people we met – that they could be so warm and open-hearted to us, strangers, after having lived through such pain and terror not so long ago.

I was also impressed that the people of Cambodia do not seem to be afraid of labeling the genocide for what it was. Perhaps they’ve realized the economic benefit of doing so, as tourists pay money to see the sites that we did, but I think that many countries would not be willing acknowledge such a black period in their history in such a short time period. I think that anyone who wants to understand Cambodia must go and see these places.

Visiting the museum and the Killing Fields: Consider hiring a tuk-tuk for the day – it will take you to both locations for a reasonable price ($10-15 per vehicle), and wait for as long as you want while you are inside. Each site has its own entrance fee of $2-4. You can hire guides just inside the entrance of the Killing Fields, and they seem to be very knowledgeable.