Places of Execution

a. Locations of state-organised judicial/quasi-judicial executions b. Operated over a period or on a number of occasions such as to achieve historical "notoriety" c. "Visitable"

World Heritage Sites connected to 'Places of Execution':

  • Auschwitz Birkenau Gas Chambers and "Execution yard"
  • Bukhara The Minaret of the Kalon mosque. "For here, on market days, particularly outrageous criminals were led up the 105 steps of this 'Tower of Death', whereupon their crimes would be enumerated to the transfixed crowd, the omniscient justice of the emir praised to the heavens and the accursed criminal tied in a sack and thrown off the top to hurtle to certain oblivion below. The gruesome spectacle was current well into the second half of the 19th century"
  • Coiba National Park "During the years that Panama was under the Dictatorships of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega, the prison on Coiba was a feared place with a reputation for brutal conditions, extreme tortures, executions and political murder. Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed in the prison during this period, but sources claim that the number could be close to three hundred. " (wiki)
  • Fortifications of Vauban Arras Citadel: 1941-44 to execute French resistance personnel and others; link
  • Himeji-jo Himeji-jo's Harakiri Mura, a place often used for ritual suicide/execution
  • Paris, Banks of the Seine Place de la Concorde was the location of the Parisian guillotine during the "Terror". Then called the Place de la Revoultion" - "the guillotine stood in the corner near the Hôtel Crillon where the statue of Brest can be found today" (Wiki).
  • Rohtas Fort "Immediately to west of the Haveli stands the execution Burj(tower), primarily dealing with rebellious princea nd other royal traitors. The execution tower has a raised platform with a hole at its center through which the unfortunate victims were thrown. The execution used to be done in the presence of the ruler living in the White Palace."; link
  • Sukur "The traditional prison and the former execution site, neither of which is still in use, are partly ruined and in need of conservation and possible reconstruction." (Nomination file and AB)
  • Thingvellir "Drekkingarhylur – Drowning pool - Guilty women were put in sacks and drowned in Drekkingarhylur while men were beheaded or hanged..... This obnoxious practice remained in effect until 1838." ; link
  • Tower of London Common criminals were executed on Tower Hill outside the inscribed area but "famous" people were executed inside on Tower Green ; link