[The following is an excerpt from Loung Ung’s amazing memoir about her experiences as a young girl who survived the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia during the late 70s.]
”The killings have started,” Pa tells my older brothers as we walk back down the mountain to our rendezvous area. “The Khmer Rouge are executing people perceived to be a threat against the Angkar [the new government]. This new country has no law or order. City people are killed for no reason. Anyone can be viewed as a threat to the Angkar – former civil servants, monks, doctors, nurses, artists, teachers, students – even people who wear glasses, as the soldiers view this as a sign of intelligence. Anyone the Khmer Rouge believes has the power to lead a rebellion will be killed. We have to be extremely careful, but if we keep moving to different villages, we may stay safe.”
It has become too familiar to me by now. When Ma wakes me up in the early morning, I do not ask her any questions. It has become a routine. After many hours of walking, we are at the same spot where we were dropped off months before. Then, we wait all afternoon and into the night for the truck that the chief arranged to come and take us far away to where no one knows us. When the truck comes in the darkness, we quietly climb in the back. We do not greet the families already on it but silently step over their bodies to find empty spaces to sit.
[…]
I look over to see Ma holding Geak [Loung’s infant sister] very tightly to her breasts, as if to never let her go.
”Ma, am hungry,” Geak cries.
”Shhh… It’s going to be okay soon.”
”Hungry, belly hurts.” Geak continues to cry.
”I love you very much and I will make things better. When we get back home, we will go to the park and get you your favorite food. We’ll get some Chinese pork dumplings. Won’t that be fun? We’ll have a picnic and a good swim, then go to the park and…”
Geak is so thin that her cheekbones protrude out of her face. Her cheeks are now hollow, her skin hangs on her bones, and her eyes are dulled with hunger.
Source:
Ung, Loung. “Anlungthmor, July 1975.” First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. Harper Perennial, 2017. 54-5. Print.
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