<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Drawn into a former high school by an intense stench, Vietnamese photographer Ho Van Tay made a horrendous discovery on </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/today-in-history" rel="" target="" title="January 10, 1979"><span>January 10, 1979</span></a><span>.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Vietnamese Army had invaded </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/cambodia" rel="" target="" title="Cambodia"><span>Cambodia</span></a><span> (then Kampuchea) weeks earlier, and had entered the capital of Phnom Penh days earlier.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>What had been a city of three million only a few years before had been completely emptied of people.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-december-18-what-happened-on-this-day-last-japanese-holdout/a96e5b11-fe0b-4e71-b657-91e6bc953f99" rel="" target="" title="Last holdout from World War II made 'one simple wrong judgement'"><strong><span>Last holdout from World War II made 'one simple wrong judgement'</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/verdict-on-aussie-killed-by-khmer-rouge/aca3078d-05f6-46f1-8cc2-637bd3bf7e6c" rel="" target="" title="Khmer Rouge regime"><span>Khmer Rouge regime</span></a><span> had forcibly evacuated the entire city in 1975 as part of their extreme communist agenda to turn the country into an agricultural collective.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>But one part of the city remained active.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The former Tuol Svay Prey High School had been transformed into a prison and interrogation centre.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-january-10-what-happened-on-this-day-s21-cambodia-genocide/267e07e1-dc4b-411f-806b-61836e403c52" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When Ho Van Tay arrived at the prison, all that remained were a series of rotting corpses.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>He took on the morbid task of documenting the atrocities with his camera.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>More than a thousand people at a time would be held at Security Prison 21 or S-21.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>There they would be chained to the floor or the wall, forbidden from talking, and fed only the most meagre of rations.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-december-7-what-happened-on-this-day/aea2bc59-d382-4221-8873-b35f3dd7ee1d" target="" title="Thieves bury stolen Ferrari, and then forget where they put it"><strong><span>Thieves bury stolen Ferrari, and then forget where they put it</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Prisoners who drank water or spoke without permission would be beaten.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Those who broke the rules would be lashed or shocked with electricity.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>One of the rules prohibited crying during a lashing or shocking.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The guards, mostly teenagers, were forbidden from conversing with the prisoners.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Under torture, prisoners would write detailed false confessions implicating themselves and others in conspiracies with the CIA, the KGB or Vietnamese authorities.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-december-24-what-happened-on-this-day-juliane-koepcke-german-teen-plane-explosion-survivor-peru-amazon-jungle-survival-story/c37e531a-8770-4ae5-b88a-3be8481783d5" target="" title="The girl who fell 3km from a plane explosion and survived"><strong><span>The girl who fell 3km from a plane explosion and survived</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>They would then be taken to a killing field and killed using a variety of makeshift weapons to save on scarce ammunition.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Of the 20,000 people detained at S-21, just 12 survived.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Among those killed at the centre was just about every foreigner who had been in the country after May 1975.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That included two Australians, </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/aust-link-in-cambodia-genocide-ruling/1f0c0b8c-5152-4d6c-8276-c68f0e609e13" rel="" target="" title="Ronald Keith Dean and David Lloyd Scott"><span>Ronald Keith Dean and David Lloyd Scott</span></a><span>.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The pair were seized after their boat strayed into Cambodian waters, tortured and murdered.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-december-17-what-happened-on-this-day-harold-holt/50376feb-a0cd-4f4c-b449-6e407b3f1780" target="" title="Harold ignored doctor's advice and vanished days later"><strong><span>Harold ignored doctor's advice and vanished days later</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The chairman of the prison would not face justice until 2012.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Kang Kek lew, a former maths teacher, spent just eight years in prison before he died of natural causes.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>An estimated quarter of Cambodia's population is estimated to have been </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/verdict-on-aussie-killed-by-khmer-rouge/aca3078d-05f6-46f1-8cc2-637bd3bf7e6c" rel="" target="" title="killed in the genocide"><span>killed in the genocide</span></a><span> between 1975 and 1979.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/today-in-history" target="" title="For more from our Today in History archive, click here."><strong><span>For more from our Today in History archive, click here</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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