We say that we won't torture but if we are put in the right situation we do torture and being attacked as a country I think made us feel like we would do anything to prevent this from happening again.'Īnd so you get The Ticking Time Bomb scenario that's played out in the media and in shows such as '24.'

'When they walk into the exhibit,' states Garniewicz, 'the first panel shows the bombing of the twin towers and it elicits an emotional response from people we've been attacked and the reason for doing that is we want to explore our capacity as individuals to torture other people. So the museum wanted to place the exhibit in a contemporary context for visitors.

Garniewicz says, 'I had no idea there were so many survivors of torture in San Diego, over 11,000 survivors of torture in San Diego County is actually about the same number of torture survivors as homeless people so you see the homeless all the time and they are visible but survivors of torture are invisible.' Some do remain in their countries but many have to flee for their own safety and they go to countries of safe haven such as the United States and specifically to San Diego.' 'The latest report by Amnesty International notes that a hundred and one countries currently use torture on a systematic basis, and that there are survivors from having been tortured. Kathi Anderson is executive director of Survivors of Torture International. 'I originally started talking about these Medieval instruments as a slice in time but I realized they are not a slice in time that some of these techniques of torture have continued to today and so torture globally is not that much different from the middle ages.' Garniewicz says the medieval instruments of torture are not merely relics from the past.

The museum has a mission to inspire human connections by exploring the human experience, and torture is a dark part of the human experience but an important aspect to explore. 'We're the instruments of torture, we were in the middle ages and we are today,' he says. He points out that the exhibit's title does not merely refer to the artifacts on display. Garniewicz is the chief operating officer for programs and collections. 'I think that our perspective on torture has changed significantly since the exhibit was brought here in 2000 and part of that has been the effect of the terrorist attack on America on 9/11 and we wanted to talk in this particular version of the exhibit about our capacity to torture other people.'

Museum of medieval torture instruments