Mission to Cambodia 2012
from Emily Graehler

We have been learning about the horrific history of Cambodia for several months now.  However, for me, today was when reality truly sunk in.  It was not until I walked into the buildings at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.  My emotions were rocked as faces of hundreds if not thousands of people stared back at me.  These were the images of every single victim who was killed in the prison at Tuol Sleng.  To give you some history, Tuol Sleng was a former security office called S-21 in ‘Democratic Kampuchea,’ which was created on orders of Pol Pot in April 17, 1975.  It was designed for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture, and killing after confessions of the ‘prisoners’ were received and documented.  Many of the prisoners were innocent Cambodians who were tortured until they confessed their crime.  The vast majority of them had not committed any crime at all, so in order to stop the torturous acts against them, they would confess to things they never actually did.  I was speechless as I walked through each room of the four main buildings, which were wrapped in barbed wire.  They kept most rooms the way they had been left when they discovered this prison during the liberation of Cambodia.  What I felt when I walked through that museum is a feeling I cannot describe, but one I will never forget.  I will never fully understand why the Khmer Rouge committed such horrible acts of violence.