Hellfire Pass Memorial, Kanchanaburi
Hellfire Pass Memorial in Kanchanaburi honors POWs and laborers who built the Death Railway during WWII, offering a moving museum and walking trail through the original cutting.
Hellfire Pass Memorial, Kanchanaburi
Hellfire Pass - Konyu Cutting - is the deepest and most difficult section of the Burma Railway, driven through solid rock about eighty kilometres north-west of Kanchanaburi. It was cut almost entirely by hand, with hammers, chisels and baskets, by prisoners of war and Asian labourers working in shifts around the clock. The name comes from the appearance of the cutting at night, lit by carbide lamps and fires.
The memorial museum on the ridge above tells the story of the line through survivor testimony, and a path leads down from it into the cutting itself, where the rock walls still carry the marks of the drilling. A longer walking trail continues along the abandoned formation past further cuttings and embankments.
The rails were lifted after the war and the site is quiet forest now, which is much of its effect. It is well beyond the town and requires a road journey.
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