Willem Overtoom
lives and works in Leiden, Netherlands
S-21 triptych
S-21 is the former Tuol Svay Prey High school that in '75 till '79 was used by the dictator Pol Pot's, Khmer Rouge Secret Service, as Prison S-21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Now is renamed to the Tuol Sleng Museum. More than 17.000 prisoners passed through S-21, to be questioned, tortured and photographed, before getting clubbed dead (to save expensive bullets) at the notorious "Killing Fields" in the extermination camp at Choeung Ek., some km. outside of the city. In the open "trash" cells and group cells, the detained, were chained to the ground. On the walls from the group cell you still see the co-ordinates of the places on the ground were they were laid down like in the old slavery ships.
S-21 is the former Tuol Svay Prey High school that in '75 till '79 was used by the dictator Pol Pot's, Khmer Rouge Secret Service, as Prison S-21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Now is renamed to the Tuol Sleng Museum. More than 17.000 prisoners passed through S-21, to be questioned, tortured and photographed, before getting clubbed dead (to save expensive bullets) at the notorious "Killing Fields" in the extermination camp at Choeung Ek., some km. outside of the city. In the open "trash" cells and group cells, the detained, were chained to the ground. On the walls from the group cell you still see the co-ordinates of the places on the ground were they were laid down like in the old slavery ships.