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The Ultimate Historical Thing To Do: Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh City
Travels are about commemoration of things. Either you commemorate something or you create something to commemorate about. And to have that moment, that commemoration, is of course just amazing. But what if it looks like this? What if it’s about commemoration of something so painful and poignant? Is it still worth the travel experience? Yes, it sure is and here’s why.
Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. One of the scariest ideas known to man. And to have an entire museum build for this = scariest? Maybe true. But there’s a better reason to get from here. You see, at the heart of Phnom Penh city is where you can find the Genocide Museum.
The place was actually a high school place turned prison area during the 1970s. It’s a huge place, with five buildings and several levels of all out imprisonment. Everything from incarceration, to torture chambers, and coercion happened in this place. Roughly around 20,000 “rouges” were said to have gone through this place to experience those things. Many have suffered and certainly many have died in this place.
But to serve as a symbol of freedom and a reminder of their painful and eye-opening past, the place is now turned as a historical museum. Now everything here has been maintained and managed. When you visit the place, you’ll find thousands of records of events and important highlights. You’ll find thousands of monochromatic photographs of people who died and survived from this place. Several rooms of the museum are now fixed, but you’ll still see the original stains, linings, and markings of the area. Even if the place is not air-conditioned, you’ll feel chills when you read and see all those artifacts. You’ll feel both sad and happy for the Khmer people. Sad to have them gone through the whole ordeal; happy to have them learn and triumph from that dark past. Potent pain! The Genocide Museum is a “breathe of new life” in the whole traveling scheme of things, because of the rawness and new light you’ll experience from it. Through this visit, I’ve learned that no matter how heartbreaking an experience may have been, it’s always worth the commemoration, worth the travel, because you learn something - and by learning something, you live some more.
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