Visit of student

        From January 2024 until today, more than 5,000 students from provinces and cities across Cambodia have visited Choeung Ek Genocide Center as part of their school education program.

        This program of visiting historical sites like Choeung Ek Genocide Center is an important learning experience for Cambodian students to better understand the Democratic Kampuchea regime, which is part of the curriculum established by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

        Below are the comments of two youths who came from Kampot province to visit Choeung Ek Genocide Center:

            “After my visit to Choeung Ek Genocide Center, I got to learn more about the brutality and cruelty of the mass executions that took place, which also claimed the lives of young and innocent children. Even though the school tour was quite short, I learned a great deal about the site and the Democratic Kampuchea regime. The regime was extremely cruel, and it manipulated innocent victims to carry out executions at the center. Moreover, the regime also destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. I do not wish for this kind of brutality and cruelty to happen again. I also hope that the next generation will invest their time in learning more deeply about the regime and visiting Choeung Ek Genocide Center.” – Cambodian youth (Grade 10, Kampot Province)

            “Before I visited Choeung Ek Genocide Center, I had the opportunity to learn about the Democratic Kampuchea regime from the Cambodian 12th-grade history book, in which we learned about the depth of the regime, its power structure, the rise and fall of the regime, and the negative impacts that the regime has had on our society today. I also learned about the mass killings that took place at Choeung Ek Genocide Center. Seeing the victims’ remains at the center made me reflect that this brutality should never have happened in the first place. As a Cambodian student, I have felt deep empathy for the victims who lost their lives unjustly. I hope that the current youth and the next generation will spend their time studying the history of our country as fellow Cambodians because when we know and understand our own history, we are less likely to let history repeat itself.” – Cambodian youth (Grade 12, Kampot Province)