Comrade Duch

Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng prison complex, was a former schoolteacher named Kang Kech Eav.

Duch oversaw a precise department of death. His guards dutifully photographed the prisoners upon arrival and photgraphed them at or near death, whether their throats were slit, their bodies otherwise mutilated, or so thin from torture and near starvation that they were beyond recognition. The photographs were part of the files to prove the enemies of the state had been killed. Duch even set aside specific days for killing various types of prisoners: one day the wives of “enemies”; another day the children; a different day, “factory workers.”

–Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over