The Master of Confessions Read Online Free PDF

number in his cell fell to forty, when others were taken away and never seen again. The hardest thing was knowing that you hadn’t done anything wrong, he says. The hardest thing was making up stories in order to survive, in order to avoid being tortured.
    â€œDID YOU CONSIDER IT an ordinary type of job, or a special one?” Judge Lavergne asks a former prison guard on the witness stand.
    â€œFrom what I saw, it was an ordinary type of job.”
    â€œWhat was ‘ordinary’ about it?”
    â€œThe Angkar assigned me to stand guard. I did the same thing all the time.”
    â€œIf you were asked today to do an ordinary job of that nature, would you do it again?”
    â€œNo! I wouldn’t!”
    The public gallery bursts into laughter.
    â€œWhat does the word ‘Angkar’ mean for you? Is it an ordinary word or does it evoke fear?”
    â€œThe term ‘Angkar’ was just an ordinary word used at the time. I wasn’t frightened to use it, because it was widely used.”
    â€œAnd the word ‘pity,’ was that used?”
    â€œI never once heard the word ‘pity’ used at S-21. Not once.”
    â€œDid prisoners ask you for help?”
    â€œYes, they asked me for help. But I told them I couldn’t. It wasn’t up to me.”
    â€œAnd was that an ordinary job?”
    â€œI only remember some parts of the job. I don’t remember the details.”
    â€œYou spent almost four years at S-21. Are the memories you have ordinary or painful ones?”
    â€œI suffered during my time there, but I had no choice. I couldn’t run away. I didn’t realize that the regime was exterminating a large part of the population. I was just trying to survive.”
    â€œAre the memories painful because you suffered, or because others did? Or was it just ordinary suffering?”
    â€œThe suffering at S-21 was immense, because we had to work hard. We had no choice.”
    â€œWas the suffering worse for you or for the prisoners?”
    â€œThe prisoners suffered more than the staff.”
    The daily tedium of the trial lulls its participants into forgetting the magnitude of the crime. But after hearing four former S-21 officers on the stand, Judge Lavergne is left seething by the way their testimony reinforces the banality of evil. Four months into Duch’s trial, the judge continues to guard against any slump in the collective sense of outrage. We’re told a process of dehumanization was required, to enable such crimes. The judge wishes to ensure we remain emotionally invested, if restrained, throughout the trial. The defense lawyer’s job is to make us see Duch’s humanity and thus underscore his potential for rehabilitation. Regardless, the judge insists that the trial’s moral compass remain the solemn and uncompromising refusal to accept the transgressions that took place at S-21.
    Each person at the prison had his own, strictly defined tasks. The warden Him Huy’s relationship with the interrogators was not a close one. He oversaw the officers who guarded the cells, but not the prisoners themselves. When an interrogator wanted one of the detainees, he gave the prisoner’s name to Suor Thi, who would tell Him Huy in which cell and in which building the guards could find him. In return, the interrogators informed Suor Thi in which individual cell the prisoner was to be kept during his interrogation. Once it was over, the interrogator sent the prisoner back to the group cell without going through Suor Thi.
    â€œWhenever a prisoner died in the cell, I received a medical report and then made the necessary adjustment to the list,” explains the dull, conscientious bureaucrat Suor Thi.
    When the medical unit wanted blood from prisoners, they put in a request to Hor, who asked Duch, since no prisoner could be removed without Duch’s authorization. I did not personally witness any blood-taking, but all those