The Cococnut tree prison.

The Coconut tree prison-it sounds sort of idyllic, right? The truth is somewhat different. The prison was originally built by the french on the Phu Quoc island just outside the Mekong delta. Later it was taken over by the Americans and the south Vietnamese who turned it into a camp for Viet Cong prisoners. It is that period which is told about in what now has become a museum not for the fainthearted-until not long ago, it was in use as prison. The story told here-with a solid dose of typical socialistic rhetoric-is one about abuse and torture. A prison with several mass graves surrounding it. a reburial ceremony was held in 2008. Welcome to the Coconut tree prison.

The camp consist of many primitive barracks surrounded by several layers of barbed wire. some of it electrified. There are guard towers, and guards patrolling between the barbed fences.

The latrines-to be emptied by inmates every day. No walls-easier to keep track of the prisoners that way. This was a daytime service only. At night one had two choices-suck it in-or do it in the barracks.

A segregation cell-one of several built when the inmates resistance movement gained momentum in the middle of 1968. One mug of water and two handfull of rice was the daily ration received from the enemy. Prisoners were employed in both cooking and collecting of firewood and as the boards state "it was a good place for our cadres and militants to exchange information and to make struggle and jail-breaks".

The segregation cell. Either glowing hot or freezing cold.

There is actually a camp kitchen there, even though the amounts of food delivered to the barracks were at the minimum.

The famous tiger cages of barbed wire. The unlucky ones were allowed only a shorts and had to be undressed except of that. No matter the conditions-rain or sun. Several prisoners died. What is not mentioned anywhere, is that this invention "created by American puppet administration" also was a favourite with the Viet Cong itself.

Some camp guard exercise. More than 40 methods of torture was established into the routine.

The ultimate cruelty, hammering nails into the skeleton of  prisoners. The next photo shows a bone with a nail trough it. It is retrieved from one of the mass graves and shows clearly this tableau is not free fantasy...There was an uprising in the prison-with elements such as hunger strike, self embezzlement and the killings of informants. In the aftermath of it, an extra lot of torture and tiger cage confinement was used. More than 4000 prisoners were killed during the almost five year period from July 1967 to march 1973-by "the enemy" as the Americans and the south Vietnamese collectively are called in all the exhibits. 

Medieval ways-boiling in a kettle.

The great escape happened on January 20th 1969. Inmates managed to dig a tunnel and 21 succeeded in escaping. In all there were 7 attempts of digging a tunnel, resulting in 5 escapes. As a result, the barracks got concrete floors.

The original tunnel digging tools.

Horror before my eyes. S21 and the Choeung Ek kilingfields.

Today was tough. A day that made an imprint. Today i went to the Choeung Ek killingfield outside Phnom  Penh and to the Tuol Sleng prison, codenamed S 21. Two sites where Khmer Rouge unfolded their activities at its most gruesome. and two places where history isn't theory. It is reality. So real that my guide, a woman that as a 13 year old experienced the big emptying of the capital enforced by Khme Rouge on April 17th 1975, just hours after they arrived in town. She survived the nightmare only to find her family decimated. No one will leave these places untouched. It is places one should not rush trough. It is a days worth of work.

The prison rules. They give little room for personal joy.

The former school buildings got dressed in barbed wire after a female inmate managed to jump from the 2nd or third floor, committing a successfull suicide. Khmer Rouge didn't want more of that!

Hastily built brickcells on the first floor. They were tiny with no form for luxury-no bed. no carpet. The toilet was a small metalbox. There were not even a door-the prisoners were monitored all the time by constantly patrolling guards. The doors weren't needed-every prisoner was chained to the floor in short leach.

Upstairs wooden cells-with doors.

Leg irons. Up to nine prisoners were chained in one long bar.

A photo of one of the mass holding cells.

a collection of prisoners mugshots.

Torture bucket-the original one. Its way of use depicted below.

This, and many other paintings, of the barbarity of S 21 were painted by Vann Nath, one of the seven adults to emerge from the prison alive. He died a couple of years ago. His painting skills was what kept him alive. Making these paintings was for him the keeping of a promise: when his group rived at S 21, they agreed that those surviving had to tell the world the story about S 21. So he did in his own way.

The gallows today. Once used to train students. The Khmer Rouge's way of use seen below.

It is difficult to tell which photo made the biggest impression. This one is a clear candidate. A pretty young girl lying on the floor. Photographed after death by torture and abuse.

A photo showing a dead body in one of the former classrooms. The next photo shows...

....the same room as it stands today. Exactly the same, minus the body. A very confronting experience. There are several other displays just like this one in other rooms.

The memorial stupa at the Choeung Ek site. It sits close to the truckstop, where the trucks transporting prisoners from S 21 arrived. From there it was only a short walk to the final end. To start with, thee were trucks only a couple nights every week, eventually it became a nightly event. So many prisoners arrived that from time to time-up to 300 a day.It was impossible to "process" everybody. They wee held in a wooden prison, awaiting  next murder night. In total more than 17.000 people were killed here. More than 8000 of them are now in the memorial stupa-arranged by  age and gender. 43 out of 129 known massgraves are left untouched.

After the Khmer rouge was driven away, locals found human remains, including brain tissue on the trunk of this beautiful tree. It was used to crush the skulls of children. One grabbed them in the legs-and swung them to the trunk....just beside, under the roof-is their mass grave.

This tree played little less gruesome role than did the killing tree. This one was used for loudspeakers playing loud traditional music. To hide the victims screams. To surrounding settlements it would sound like there was a Khmer Rouge meeting....again!

The long leaf stems of the sugarpalm....usefull as a cutting tool to cut throats and even decapitate slowly. 

Bones regularly surface in some of the massgraves, especially now in the rainy season. The caretakers frequently take rounds, collecting bones.

Pieces of clothing also surface.

Skulls in the big memorial stupa. a study in forensic science. You learn to identify people killed by ironbars, the characteristic looking sugarpalmknife or machetes and hammers.

Human remains are arranged in 17 tiers, the nine lower ones exclusively deal with skulls. The remaining ones all other bones.

Wire that once embraced a victim.