Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum


The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum or simply Tuol Sleng; lit. "Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill") is a museum chronicling the Cambodian genocide. Located in Phnom Penh, the site is a former secondary school which was used as Security Prison 21 (S-21; Khmer: ម�"�'�'ីរស-២១) by the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 until its fall in 1979. From 1976 to 1979, an estimated 20,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng and it was one of between 150 and 196 torture and execution centers established by the Khmer Rouge. On 26 July 2010, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia convicted the prison's chief, Kang Kek Iew, for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. He died on 2 September 2020 while serving a life sentence.

Sortie: A type of counter-attack used to disrupt the enemy's attack or siege of a fortification, causing the enemy to divert some of its resources away from the initial attack or siege.

Dropsy: (pronounced drop-see) Nineteenth-century term for the condition known today as edema. Fluid builds up in the tissues and causes limbs to swell up horribly.

Mortar: An unrifled artillery gun which was designed to launch shells over walls and enemy fortifications. The most famous Civil War mortar is the "Dictator" -- a mortar which was mounted on a railroad car and used during the siege of Petersburg. With its 13 inch bore it was capable of launching two hundred pound shells.

Rout: A crushing defeat where, often, the losers run from the field.

"Powder Monkey": A sailor (sometimes a child) who carried explosives from the ship's magazine to the ship's guns.

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