Cambodia's mobile genocide museum teaches Khmer Rouge history to youth

A survivor-led project brings Cambodia's darkest history to life for a generation born after the Khmer Rouge era.

A team member of a bus converted into a mobile museum explains the Khmer Rouge regime to students during an outreach program at a school in Phnom Srok district, Banteay Meanchey province, on March 24, 2025. Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP

By Anna Fadiah and Hayu Andini

Every week, across Cambodia's provinces, a white bus pulls into schoolyards and temple courtyards—its inside retrofitted not for transport, but for memory. Known as Cambodia's mobile genocide museum, this bus is part of a new education initiative bringing the stories of Khmer Rouge survivors directly to children who were born long after the blood-soaked years of 1975 to 1979.

At one stop, under the shade of the bus, 71-year-old Mean Loeuy tells a group of high school students about his time in a Khmer Rouge labour camp. “At first, we shared a bowl of rice between ten people,” he says. “By the end, it was one grain of rice with a splash of water in the palm of our hands.” His voice is calm, but the horror hangs heavy. For these children, this is the first time many have heard such details about the regime’s cruelty.

The mobile genocide museum is part of a broader outreach led by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)—a UN-backed tribunal that wrapped up its trials in 2022. With its legal work complete, the ECCC has pivoted toward education. Over the past year, its traveling project has reached more than 60,000 students in nearly 100 schools, with plans to reach even more in 2025.

A generation with fading memory

It has now been 50 years since Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. Yet two-thirds of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 30, meaning most people have no direct experience of the country’s most traumatic period. They know little about the estimated two million deaths caused by starvation, forced labor, execution, and disease under Pol Pot’s brutal rule.

For many, this absence of personal memory is compounded by a lack of information. Parents and grandparents often stay silent, choosing to bury their pain. Formal education about the era is limited, and the regime’s crimes remain a sensitive political topic.

That’s where Cambodia’s mobile genocide museum steps in.

In Phnom Srok, a town in the northwest near the infamous Trapeang Thma reservoir—a Khmer Rouge mega-project where thousands died—dozens of students pile into the air-conditioned bus. Inside, they find comics based on survivor stories, interactive iPads loaded with tribunal archives, and even virtual reality headsets recreating scenes from Khmer Rouge work camps.

The bus’s aim is clear: to turn abstract horror into something tangible. “I had difficulty believing the brutality,” admits 14-year-old Mouy Chheng. “I was not born under the Khmer Rouge. But now I understand the difficulties of the regime.”

A survivor’s testimony, a nation's scars

Mean Loeuy’s own story is one of loss and endurance. He lost more than a dozen relatives during the Khmer Rouge regime and spent years in backbreaking labor. For him, teaching today’s youth is more than an obligation—it’s a form of healing. “It was like a prison without walls,” he says, describing the camps. “You could not escape. And you were always hungry.”

He is one of a small group of survivors still healthy enough to travel and share their stories. His words are met with silence, sometimes confusion, sometimes tears. Most of the children listening weren’t even born when the last Khmer Rouge soldier surrendered in the late 1990s. Yet his pain bridges the decades.

At a nearby temple, skulls and bones of Khmer Rouge victims are still on display—grim reminders that this is not ancient history. And while the government has built memorials, survivor outreach like this bus brings history alive in a way textbooks can’t.

Asking the hard questions

In classrooms where the museum visits, lawyer and educator Ven Pov invites students to ask anything they want. “Why wasn’t Pol Pot tried?” one student asks. “Why weren’t they given the death penalty?” “How is it possible that famine killed so many?”

Ven Pov, 56, was a child during the Khmer Rouge years. Today, he tries to answer with honesty, even when the truth is incomplete. “We do not have answers,” he says softly. “We need to do more research.”

Despite decades of investigation, many former Khmer Rouge leaders lived out their lives unpunished. Only three were convicted by the tribunal. This lack of full justice has left deep wounds—and questions about the tribunal’s legacy.

Some, like former Prime Minister Hun Sen—himself a former Khmer Rouge member—argue that peace and reconciliation were more important than mass prosecutions. Critics say this stance allowed many perpetrators to avoid accountability, preserving power structures that persist today.

Bridging justice and memory

For Ven Pov and others involved in Cambodia’s mobile genocide museum, the goal isn’t revenge. It’s remembrance. “Justice and reconciliation go hand in hand,” he says. “Victims want justice. But they also want peace, national unity, and reconciliation.”

Timothy Williams, a professor of transitional justice at Bundeswehr University in Munich, supports the initiative. “Transitional justice isn’t just about punishing criminals,” he explains. “It’s about giving society a shared understanding of the past.”

Williams believes the museum should have started a decade ago. But he also recognizes the power it holds now, especially as Cambodia experiences rising authoritarianism. “The lessons of the past are crucial here,” he says. “Memory is political. And if you don’t talk about what happened, others will rewrite it.”

The future of genocide education in Cambodia

Back in Phnom Penh, the ECCC maintains an archive of hundreds of thousands of documents—open to scholars, journalists, and anyone curious enough to learn. The hope is that through access, education, and outreach, the past will remain visible—and the mistakes not repeated.

Still, challenges remain. Many schools don’t have the resources to host the bus. Survivor numbers are dwindling. And in a nation focused on economic development and political stability, talking about genocide can still be taboo.

But for students like Mouy Chheng, the project is life-changing. “Before, I only knew a little,” she says. “Now I understand what my country went through.”

And for survivors like Mean Loeuy, that understanding is everything. “If we don’t tell them,” he says, “who will?”