Choeung Ek
Coordinates: 11 ° 29 ′ 3.8 ″ N , 104 ° 54 ′ 7.2 ″ E
Choeung Ek , a former orchard and Chinese graveyard about 17 kilometers south of Phnom Penh , is the best known of the so-called killing fields on which the regime of the Khmer Rouge 1975-1979 about exekutierte 17,000 people. Mass graves with 8,895 bodies were discovered here after the fall of the dictatorship, many of the dead were former inmates of Tuol Sleng Prison .
The memorial
Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial marked by a Buddhist stupa . The stupa has acrylic glass walls and is filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. Some of the lower floors are open during the day so the skulls can be viewed directly. Many were crushed.
The current government of Cambodia is encouraging tourists to visit the site. In addition to the stupa, there are also pits from which the bodies were exhumed.
On May 3, 2005, the City of Phnom Penh announced that it had signed a 30-year contract with the JC Royal Company to develop the memorial. As part of the agreement, the body parts still remaining in the field will not be touched.
photos
Skulls shown in the stupa
The memorial stupa, full of human skulls
A view of the mass graves at Choeung EK
More mass graves
Original map of the Choeung Ek extermination camp
Choeung Ek Extermination Camp
Bones from a mass grave
Bones and teeth from a mass grave
Mass grave at Choeung Ek
Mass grave and bones
Mass grave and tree used to kill children
Mass grave
Mass grave
Mass grave, memorial stupa, skull
Mass grave, memorial stupa
Fragments of a Chinese tombstone
Movie
The film The Killing Fields is a dramatized representation of the events that took place in Choeung Ek.
literature
- Killing Fields Memorial . In: Anna Kaminsky, Ruth Gleinig, Lena Ens: Museums and memorials in memory of the victims of the communist dictatorships . Published by Anna Kaminsky on behalf of the Federal Foundation for Coming to terms with the SED dictatorship. Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2018. ISBN 978-3-95498-390-2 , pp. 154–155.
