Khmer Rouge Genocide Site Names
What Foreign Tourists to Toul Sleng and Choeung Ek Should Know
However few are aware how the very names of these places offer a sinister glimpse into the minds and motives of those who created them.
As in Germany and Europe where the same horrified fascination draws people to tour the Nazi death camps, Cambodians welcome visitors to the sites, hoping it will reinforce a global message of "never again".
Up to 2 million people died of overwork, starvation, illness, torture and execution during the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 drive to turn the country into an agrarian utopia bereft of money, markets and social classes.
The world is still seeking answers as to what drove the regime and a trial to Western standards of a handful of surviving former leaders is only now getting underway. Former leader Pol Pot died at his Anlong Veng home in 1998. The names his people gave to his worst horrors give clues to how he thought.
Poisonous Sleng is Also a Powerful Medicine
The best known Khmer Rouge prison, Toul Sleng, was once a high school but its name changed under the KR's Democratic Kampuchea when it was converted into a torture center. Guide books often explain the name away as simply "the poisoned hill" or "hill of poisoned fruit".
But Sleng, although poisonous, is much more to Cambodians.
"The seed of the Sleng is the father of all medicines," explains Srey Peouv, 18, a seller at a traditional medicine supplier in the capital. Like all her colleagues, she keeps a large stash of them and they are in high demand.
"Take just one eighth of a seed at a time. It cures many illnesses because it makes the body cool, but too much and you die."
Like traditional Chinese medicine, Khmer medicine maintains that elements of yin and yang, hot and cold, must be balanced to maintain the health of the body.
So the people who named Toul Sleng, which "processed" around 16,000 people, probably believed the atrocities carried out there were curing Cambodia, not poisoning it.
"They probably gave it that name because they saw it as a medicine to cure bad elements in the country and cool the temperaments of the people kept there," says Bunna, 45, who survived the regime although his entire family was wiped out.
"I remember before my father was killed, he would take Sleng as medicine to help him work hard and keep his body strong. Khmers don't look at things as black and white, good and bad like foreigners do. Everything has a place.
"Something which is poisonous can also be good for you in moderation. Something which is delicious can be bad if you eat too much. The universe has discipline. I think that is what they meant when they named Toul Sleng."
Choeung Ek Means Champions
Just outside of Phnom Penh lie the mass graves of Choeung Ek, and pieces of bone and clothing can still be seen. A stupa of skulls is its most famous attraction.
Like Toul Sleng, Choeung Ek is now a museum. Once, prisoners from Toul Sleng were trucked here for execution.
But although foreigners prefer to call it the Killing Fields rather than stumbling over its Khmer name, this name too is steeped in irony.
Choeung Ek is a slang term meaning champions, usually used in terms of sports.
But for the thousands who were brought here to die, and, perhaps even more importantly, the loyal servants of the Khmer Rouge who brought them, the name was a final testament to the power of Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge, the name implies, was too mighty to defeat.
Even as the prisoners prepared for their deaths, they were being told the regime had won.
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