[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.]
Of the five hundred or so new people in our village, there are only two or three babies among the families. Although I cannot fully understand her words, I overhear Ma say women are so overworked, underfed, and filled with fear that most cannot become pregnant anymore. Even when they do, many suffer miscarriages. Most newborn babies do not survive more than a couple of days. Pa says there will be a generation of children completely missing from our country. Shaking his head, he looks at Geak [Loung’s infant sister]. “The first victims are always the children.”
Source:
Ung, Loung. “Ro Leap, November 1975.” First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. Harper Perennial, 2017. 66. Print.
I have a coworker who married a woman from the lost generation. When they go back and visit, as soon as the locals find out her age, they'll always ask about her families story of how they made it out.