Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum, Thai-Burma Railway

Abstract

In Kanchanaburi province in western Thailand, a 240-kilometre road heads north-west from the major regional and tourist centre, Kanchanaburi, to Three Pagodas Pass, on the border with Myanmar (Burma). Just off the highway, 80 kilometres from Kanchanaburi, stands the Hellre Pass Memorial Museum. This modest white building was opened in 1998 by the Australian government to serve as a memorial to the 60,000 Allied prisoners of war and perhaps 270,000 Asian labourers (romusha) who suffered and died while constructing the Thai-Burma railway during the Second World War.