i'll agree with that

I cannot imagine a more all round perfectly apt memorial for the Toul Sleng horror than as it now stands.
(and for all of the KR crimes to some extent)

It is so easy to access the personal events of the victims who were imprisoned inside, each as an individual human person.
About as close as you can possibly get 45 years later i reckon.
You can certainly experience a taste of real horror terror agony and anguish.
Just a glimpse, but nevertheless, enough to rock your soul.

It works pretty well. A whole lot of schools, pagodas, public facilities etc were used as prisons or execution sites. Many local people remember these but they are either still operating or there are only bare walls left if anything. You can't preserve everything as a memorial. The S21 site is the only prison that was preserved. I think most visitors misunderstand the nature of the place, in that the vast majority of the inmates were from within the organization, and a huge proportion of Division 703 who guarded/ manned the prisons found themselves suddenly incarcerated for minor infractions. It was an insane paranoid organization that cannibalized its biggest adherents.
The record of one of the yachtsmen is on display and particularly poignant to me, maybe because he wrote his confession in English and in common with other inmates was forced to admit such absurd ideas. I was recruited by the CIA in my boarding school and the KGB in my local football club etc. I'm still amazed at how dysfunctional and incompetent the Democratic Kampuchea government was. They sold thousands of tons of forest products ( dried geckos/pangolin scales/ rare resins etc) at well below the market price, and besides rice that was all they ever exported. And wasting so many human resources, I feel like they were almost some sort of millennial cult more than a serious communist movement. All about heads on sticks because they didn't bother to read Mao, Marx and Engels etc. They probably read Beria though.

"According to the Communist theory the love of the people, the true love of the people -- for the people is to give the absolute rights to the workers class. I would like to confirm; the true Communist theory is that the love for -- the true love for the people is -- the true love for the people is to provide the absolute ability to implement the proletarian class. Your Honour, the real love of the people is to give the proletarian to realize themselves." Comrade Duch - 6 April 2009, Trial Day 4.

"I had expected to encounter a monster, an inhumane person, but I realized then that things were much more tragic, much more frightening. I realized that in front of me there was a man who looked very much like many friends of mine, a Marxist, a human being who was a Marxist who was prepared to surrender his life for his country for the revolution. He believed in this cause and the ultimate goal of his commitment and his belief was the welfare and wellbeing of the inhabitants of Cambodia. He was fighting
against injustice, inequity and although through the various clichéd descriptions of the Khmer peasant used by the Communist
Khmer propaganda that such a peasant would not necessarily be the completely fabricated archetype. I, myself, in Paris had many
friends who were committed to this Communist revolution and they were looking at events in Cambodia with a gaze that to me was
quite horrifying but it was, in their eyes, justified by the fact that the ends in fact justify the means and that end to justify
those means would be the independence of Cambodia, Cambodia's right to self-determination, putting an end to dire poverty, and
of course the great dreams and hopes for the future. The Cambodians have not been the only people that have killed people for the sake of fulfilling a dream." Francois Bizot - 8 April 2009, Trial Day 6

" to fully measure, appreciate the depth of the horror, one can only do this by fully understanding the humanity in such a person. If we turn these people into monsters, a category apart from human beings with which we can have no identification as human beings -- not identification with what they've done as criminals but identification as human beings -- then I think there is no way we
can have any kind of grasp of what they've perpetrated." Francois Bizot - 9 April 2009, Trial Day 7

"According to the Communist theory the love of the people, the true love of the people -- for the people is to give the absolute rights to the workers class. I would like to confirm; the true Communist theory is that the love for -- the true love for the people is -- the true love for the people is to provide the absolute ability to implement the proletarian class. Your Honour, the real love of the people is to give the proletarian to realize themselves." Comrade Duch - 6 April 2009, Trial Day 4.

"I had expected to encounter a monster, an inhumane person, but I realized then that things were much more tragic, much more frightening. I realized that in front of me there was a man who looked very much like many friends of mine, a Marxist, a human being who was a Marxist who was prepared to surrender his life for his country for the revolution. He believed in this cause and the ultimate goal of his commitment and his belief was the welfare and wellbeing of the inhabitants of Cambodia. He was fighting against injustice, inequity and although through the various clichéd descriptions of the Khmer peasant used by the Communist Khmer propaganda that such a peasant would not necessarily be the completely fabricated archetype. I, myself, in Paris had many friends who were committed to this Communist revolution and they were looking at events in Cambodia with a gaze that to me was quite horrifying but it was, in their eyes, justified by the fact that the ends in fact justify the means and that end to justify those means would be the independence of Cambodia, Cambodia's right to self-determination, putting an end to dire poverty, and of course the great dreams and hopes for the future. The Cambodians have not been the only people that have killed people for the sake of fulfilling a dream." Francois Bizot - 8 April 2009, Trial Day 6

" to fully measure, appreciate the depth of the horror, one can only do this by fully understanding the humanity in such a person. If we turn these people into monsters, a category apart from human beings with which we can have no identification as human beings -- not identification with what they've done as criminals but identification as human beings -- then I think there is no way we
can have any kind of grasp of what they've perpetrated." Francois Bizot - 9 April 2009, Trial Day 7

Johno35 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 6:22 am
"I had expected to encounter a monster, an inhumane person, but I realized then that things were much more tragic, much more frightening. Francois Bizot - 8 April 2009, Trial Day 6

" to fully measure, appreciate the depth of the horror, one can only do this by fully understanding the humanity in such a person. If we turn these people into monsters, a category apart from human beings with which we can have no identification as human beings -- not identification with what they've done as criminals but identification as human beings -- then I think there is no way we can have any kind of grasp of what they've perpetrated." Francois Bizot - 9 April 2009, Trial Day 7

And to quote/parphrase a Jewish holocaust researcher who wrote
"the most awful thing you realise after studying these crimes is not to know that others could do these terrible things to you, and to those that you love - but to come to understand that almost every single one of us is capable of doing these things to others - given the right circumstances"

That realisation, in the dark depths of attending these trials, put me in a very grumpy mood about myself, my friends and all of the human race for a few years.
I have still not fully come to grips with it yet - (you can sometimes see it spilling out in my posts) - but it has certainly improved my relationship with my wild animals and birds. I much prefer to spend my life with them nowadays.

Sure there are genuine psychopaths like Duch - but all of the foot soldiers who actually did the torture and murders were just your average Joe.
Same as the "bad Germans", the Rowandans, the Aussies who massacred the aboriginals, those who drop bombs on villagers from 30,000 feet, he Japanese who sacked Nankin.
ie Your local baker or candlestick maker - and the stats say - even you and i.