Today
The best known monument of the Killing Fields is at the village of Choeung Ek. Today, it is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the victims, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide. The memorial park at Choeung Ek has been built around the mass graves of many thousands of victims, most of whom were executed after they had been transported from the S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh. The utmost respect is given to the victims of the massacres through signs and tribute sections throughout the park. Many dozens of mass graves are visible above ground, many which have not been excavated as of yet. Commonly, bones and clothing surface after heavy rainfalls due to the large number of bodies still buried in shallow mass graves. It is not uncommon to run across the bones or teeth of the victims scattered on the surface as one tours the memorial park. If these are found, visitors are asked to notify a memorial park officer or guide.
A survivor of the genocide, Dara Duong, founded The Killing Fields Museum in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Read more about this topic: Killing Fields
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“You can make children believe whatever you want, and the children of today are the soldiers and mothers of tomorrow.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Major Von Keller (Walter Slezak)
“If you’re born in America with a black skin, you’re born in prison, and the masses of black people in America today are beginning to regard our plight or predicament in this society as one of a prison inmate.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“Indeed, the best books have a use, like sticks and stones, which is above or beside their design, not anticipated in the preface, not concluded in the appendix. Even Virgil’s poetry serves a very different use to me today from what it did to his contemporaries. It has often an acquired and accidental value merely, proving that man is still man in the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)