poisonous hill used to be a High School before the Khmer Rouge turned it into the high security prison S-21, mainly for political prisoners. It was established in 1976 and was the last stop for all 20.000 prisoners before they were murdered on the killing fields. Prisoners included men, women and children as well as Khmer Rouge soldiers who were mistrusted by the regime. Usually prisoners stayed up to 6 months at Tuol Sleng, always staying inside a 1x2m cell with shackles on their feet except for the times when they were tortured to give information on other traitors. Many people died right there as a consequence of being tortured, only seven survived. Many were sent to the killing fields where an estimated 3 Million Cambodians, most of them people of higher education and their families, was well as people who seemed intellectual (those wearing glasses or carrying books) were brutally murdered. At Choeng Ek, one of the killing fields close to Tuol Sleng is a memorial centre for all the heinous crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, where ironically former Khmer Rouge soldiers are employed as guides.
Every prisoner at S-21 was photographed and received a registration number. Those who died in their cells were photographed as well to show they hadn’t escaped. Today all these photographs line the walls and as you walk past them you feel really sick to 
your stomach. All these men, women and children as young as 7 years stare back at you with an expressionless face.
While the adults all had cells to themselves, the children were tied up, 20 kids to one long foot shackle, tortured as much as the adults and eventually killed just for being born into the wrong family or being forced to join the Khmer Rouge and then maybe voicing their opinion at the wrong time.
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