The Holocaust Museum in Washington is dedicating space to the Khmer Rouge this month, including photographs from the torture center Tuol Sleng and an exhibit of personal items that once belonged to victims of the regime.
Gregory Naranjo, exhibition developer at the William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education, said the inclusion of Khmer Rouge atrocities at the museum is a reminder that “these types of crimes did not end after the Holocaust.”
“We hope that by looking not only at the Holocaust, but some of the other atrocities like Cambodia that occurred after it, that we can engage our audience, our very large audience, that comes to the museum and many more that come to our website, to consider how we might be able to prevent mass atrocities, by at least becoming aware of some of those that have occurred after the Holocaust,” he said.
The exhibition includes an overview of the Khmer Rouge regime, from 1975 to 1979, with photographs and reproductions created with materials from the Documentation Center of Cambodia. It also includes films from the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and photographs of prisoners of the former torture center. Upstairs, in an exhibition called “I Want Justice,” possessions of victims will go on display, starting May 16.
The exhibitions will run through October 2017 and are free and open to the public.
Some of the items include photographs from former VOA Khmer staffer Nou Sarem, a survivor of the regime, including photographs of her family that made it out of the country.
“I did not object at all,” she said in an interview. “I want people to know that in Cambodia, Cambodians were massacred.”
Check out our special page on 40th anniversary of Khmer Rouge takeover here.