Once a high school classroom in the Phnom Penh suburb of Tuol Sleng, this room was one of many ...

Once a high school classroom in the Phnom Penh suburb of Tuol Sleng, this room was one of many used by the Khmer Rouge to torture mostly innocent Cambodians and their families accused of treason, intellectualism or bad thoughts during the period of autogenocide from 1975 to 1979. Known only as S-21 to a small number of high ranking Khmer Rouge officials, and as 'konlaenh choul min dael chenh' ('the place where people went in but never came out') to factory staff working nearby at the time, this complex saw the death of between 14,000 and 17,000 people and remains in the state in which it was discovered in early 1979 by invading Vietnamese troops. The photo on the wall shows one of the prison's final victims lying shackled to the iron bed, having been brutally tortured to death in the last hours before the prison was liberated. The shackles still remain attached to the bed, while the instruments of torture used on this last victim lie on the base.