“The steep rock walls of Thailand’s Hellfire Pass symbolize the slavery, starvation, torture and lost lives of thousands of [Allied] POWs and Asian civilians during World War II, when Japan forced them to build the infamous Death Railway to boost its invasion of Burma.

Most were captured when Britain surrendered its colonial hold on Singapore in February 1942, while other POWs were seized in Britain's Malaysia and Dutch-held Indonesia.

About one-fifth of the POWs died from untreated diseases and starvation -- they were given watery gruel rations and sadistic punishments while building… Executions of prisoners and laborers were common.” - Richard S. Ehrlich, for CNN

The Tenasserim Hills still bare this scarred landscape today and remains of the railway are easily found thanks in part to a new Memorial Museum built adjacent to the pass.