Polla
Get the Whole Picture in One Buliding
The Red Museum in Sulaimani is a place that visitors should not miss in order to know the history of struggling and suffering in Kurdistan. There a saying, “if you don’t know the past of a place, you won’t be able to know its present and future.” The Red Museum was built in 1979 by the Bath Party, and since then it used to be the concentration camp in Sulamani till the popular uprising in 1991 . Thousands of innocent were tortured despicably in it. The Red Musaem doesn’t describe how the situation was just in Sulamani, but also gives you a complete picture about situation in Kurdistan when Saddam was in charge. There are many halls in it, and each one present an area and its victims. For example, there is a hall, and it has 182000 pieces of glasses hang on the wall, each piece of glass symbolize one person who victimized by Saddam during the Anfal process. Also, in the hall there are 5000 lights on the roof, each light symbolize one village that vandalized and razed to the ground during the Anfal process. There is another hall full of photos; the photos were taken by the Bath Party in order to make a document and send them to Baghdad to show Saddam their activists in Kurdistan. During the popular uprising, people attacked the Red Museum, and found those photos. Last week, I took some of my teachers to there, and I helped them as a translator. One of them saw the photos and said,” What were we doing at the time when these things happened. We were having nice lives.” I felt that she wanted to cry deeply because the photos told her everything before I translate a word. One thing that excited people whom I took is the president room in the building. Now they put pigeons in the president room. And some people believe that they should have put dogs in the room instead of the pigeons. The reason why they put pigeons instead of dogs is because the pigeons are symbol for peace; therefore they want to show peace beside the genocide. in brief, I recommend visitor to go to the Red Museum to see with your own eyes how Kurdish people suffered under Saddam’s Regime. If you go there, you are able to know how situation was in whole Kurdistan not just in Sulaimani. You as visitor might feel guilty of not doing anything at the time when these things happened.