Introduction
Loung Ung's memoir "First They Killed My Father" offers a deeply personal and harrowing account of one of the darkest chapters in human history - the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. Through the eyes of a young girl, we witness the sudden upheaval of a comfortable life in Phnom Penh and the subsequent struggle for survival in a world turned upside down by extremist ideology and violence.
This book provides a unique perspective on the Cambodian genocide, offering readers a chance to understand the human impact of this tragedy beyond mere statistics. Ung's story is one of resilience, family bonds, and the indomitable human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror.
A Privileged Life Shattered
Loung Ung's story begins in 1975 when she was just five years old. Her life in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, was one of relative privilege. Her father held a high-ranking position in the military, allowing the family to enjoy a comfortable middle-class existence. They lived in a modern apartment block, a stark contrast to the makeshift tents of the city's poor.
The Ung children led lives that many Cambodian children could only dream of. They attended school six days a week, enjoyed outings to the cinema, ate at restaurants, and went shopping regularly. The family even owned a Mazda sports car, a symbol of their elevated status in Cambodian society.
However, this idyllic life was about to come to an abrupt and violent end. On an otherwise ordinary day in April 1975, young Loung witnessed a sight that would forever change her life: Khmer Rouge soldiers marching into Phnom Penh.
The Khmer Rouge, a communist rebel army, had just defeated the democratic government in a civil war. Their vision for Cambodia was one of extreme agrarian communism, where all citizens would be forced to live simple peasant lives working the land.
As the soldiers entered the city, they used megaphones to order all residents to leave immediately or face execution. In a matter of hours, Loung's family was forced to abandon their home and most of their possessions. Along with tens of thousands of other city dwellers, they piled into an old truck and fled Phnom Penh, leaving behind the only life they had ever known.
Concealing Identities for Survival
The Ung family's escape from Phnom Penh marked the beginning of a perilous journey where their very identities became a threat to their survival. Under the new Khmer Rouge regime, their previous social status and way of life made them enemies of the state.
As they fled the city, the family encountered a Khmer Rouge checkpoint where soldiers interrogated civilians about their former occupations. Those who admitted any connection to the previous government were taken away, likely to be executed. Loung's father, aware of the danger, made a critical decision that would shape their survival strategy: he lied, claiming to be a peasant farmer. Her mother followed suit, saying she sold clothes at a local market.
This deception was not just a one-time occurrence but the beginning of a new reality where they would constantly have to hide their true selves. The family had multiple reasons to fear persecution under the Khmer Rouge:
- Her father's former position as a military official in the previous government
- Their status as former city dwellers
- Her mother's Chinese-Cambodian ethnicity
The Khmer Rouge's vision of an egalitarian agrarian society was selectively applied, with certain groups targeted for persecution. Anyone who wasn't ethnically Cambodian, had lived in cities, or had connections to the previous government was at risk. The Ung family fit all these categories, making their situation extremely precarious.
Living under constant fear of discovery, the family had to be vigilant at all times. They couldn't risk revealing any information about their past lives or showing any signs of education or refinement that might betray their former status. This constant state of alert and deception added an enormous psychological burden to their already difficult circumstances.
Life as Slave Laborers
The Khmer Rouge's radical restructuring of Cambodian society meant that Loung's family, along with hundreds of others, were forcibly relocated to a remote rural village to work as peasant farmers. This marked the beginning of a nightmarish existence under the brutal regime.
The new agrarian society envisioned by the Khmer Rouge involved emptying cities and forcing urban dwellers to work in rural areas. The reality of this new life was far from the proclaimed ideal of equality and simplicity. Instead, it was a system of exploitation and extreme hardship.
Loung's family, like all new arrivals to the countryside, were subjected to grueling labor seven days a week. From dawn to dusk, they toiled in the fields, planting rice, constructing dams, and digging trenches. The work was backbreaking, and there was no respite.
Despite their hard work, food was always scarce. Within just five months, two-thirds of the new arrivals to the village had either starved to death or succumbed to fatal illnesses. The lack of adequate nutrition and healthcare made survival a daily struggle.
The Khmer Rouge also implemented a strict class system, dividing the population into three tiers:
- Khmer Rouge officials and military personnel
- Lifelong rural dwellers
- Former city dwellers, educated individuals, and anyone associated with the old government
Loung's family, falling into the third category, were considered the lowest class of citizens. This classification meant they were treated with particular cruelty and given the least amount of food and resources.
The horror of life under the Khmer Rouge was particularly evident in the treatment of these third-class citizens. Loung witnessed many of her fellow villagers starve to death, as they were deliberately given insufficient food to survive.
In this dire situation, the Ung family's survival hinged on the bravery and sacrifice of Loung's 11-year-old brother, Kim. He managed to secure a job as a servant in the village chief's household. Despite enduring daily beatings from the chief's children, Kim persevered. His motivation was clear: at the end of each day, he was allowed to take home leftover scraps from the chief's family's dinner. These meager offerings were often the difference between life and death for the Ung family.
The Family Torn Apart
Despite the horrors of their new life in the rural village, the Ung family at least had the comfort of being together. However, even this small solace was short-lived. The regime's brutal policies soon tore the family apart, starting with the oldest children.
One day, Khmer Rouge soldiers arrived in the village with an announcement: due to an alleged Vietnamese invasion, all teenage boys and girls were to be taken away to work camps to contribute to the war effort. The family was powerless to resist as 14-year-old Keav, Loung's older sister, was taken away the next morning.
Keav's parting words to her father were brave and optimistic: "Don't be afraid, Pa. I will survive." Tragically, these would be the last words Loung would ever hear from her sister.
Keav was sent to a labor camp with about 160 other teenagers. The conditions were brutal, with girls forced to work as hard as boys but given less food. After about six months in these squalid conditions, Keav contracted dysentery. She was sent to the camp's so-called "hospital," but this was a place of neglect rather than healing.
The Khmer Rouge had systematically murdered most of the country's trained medical professionals, replacing them with untrained individuals pretending to be doctors and nurses. There was no medicine available, and patients were left to suffer without proper care. Keav, lying in her own filth, died within a few days, far from her family and any comfort.
The loss of Keav was just the beginning of the family's fragmentation. In December 1976, the regime's discovery of her father's true identity led to another devastating blow. Two soldiers arrived at their hut one evening to take him away. Like many others associated with the former government, he was likely taken to a mass grave and executed, possibly buried alive after being struck with a hammer.
Fearing that the rest of the family would suffer the same fate, Loung's mother made an agonizing decision. She urged her remaining children to leave the village, each going in a different direction, and to claim they were orphans if questioned. Her reasoning was that if the family split up, it would be harder for the regime to find and execute them all.
This heart-wrenching choice was made out of desperate love and a desire to save her children's lives. Loung, along with her brother and sister, followed their mother's instructions and left the village. Their mother stayed behind with four-year-old Geak, who was too young to travel alone.
This marked the final dissolution of the Ung family unit. The bonds of family that had provided some comfort amidst the horrors of the regime were now severed, leaving each member to face the brutal world alone.
Survival and Loss
The difficult decision made by Loung's mother to separate the family ultimately saved the lives of her older children. However, this salvation came at a terrible cost, as Loung would later discover.
After fleeing her village, Loung found refuge in a work camp for orphaned children. Approximately a year later, she woke one morning with an overwhelming sense of dread. Acting on this premonition, she obtained permission to leave the camp for a day and ran back to her old village as fast as she could.
Upon arrival, her worst fears were confirmed. Villagers informed her that her mother and baby sister, Geak, had been taken away by soldiers just the day before. While Loung never learned the exact details of their fate, she believed they had met the same end as countless others under the regime - executed and buried in a mass grave.
This devastating news left Loung not only grief-stricken but also tormented by unanswerable questions. She found herself constantly wondering which of them had been killed first - her mother or her little sister. The horror of imagining their final moments added another layer of trauma to her already immense suffering.
However, even in the face of this unimaginable loss, Loung's mother's sacrifice had achieved its goal. Thanks to her decision to separate the family, Loung and her remaining siblings were able to survive long enough to see the end of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.
In 1979, after four years of brutality, Vietnamese forces liberated much of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge's grip on power weakened, and the mass executions of civilians finally ceased. This marked the beginning of a new chapter for the survivors of the genocide, including Loung and her siblings.
A New Beginning
As the Khmer Rouge regime crumbled, opportunities for escape and a new life began to emerge for some Cambodians. Loung's eldest surviving brother, Meng, seized one such opportunity in 1979.
Meng managed to gather enough money to secure passage to the United States for himself and one of his siblings. In a decision that demonstrated both wisdom and selflessness, he chose Loung, his youngest surviving sibling, to accompany him. His reasoning was based on Loung's age - she was young enough to still benefit from formal education in their new country, something that had been denied to them under the Khmer Rouge.
This decision gave Loung a chance that many Cambodian children of her generation would never have - the opportunity to start over in a place free from the trauma and devastation that had defined her early years. In 1980, at the age of ten, Loung arrived in the United States, a survivor of one of history's most horrific genocides.
The journey from Cambodia to the United States marked not just a physical transition but also the beginning of a long process of healing and rebuilding. Loung would have to learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, and find ways to process the trauma she had experienced. However, she now had the chance to do so in safety, with access to education and opportunities that would have been unthinkable just a year earlier.
Final Thoughts
Loung Ung's memoir, "First They Killed My Father," offers a deeply personal and harrowing account of one of the darkest chapters in human history. Through her eyes, we witness the sudden upheaval of a comfortable life in Phnom Penh and the subsequent struggle for survival under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
The book provides a unique perspective on the Cambodian genocide, offering readers a chance to understand the human impact of this tragedy beyond mere statistics. Ung's story is one of resilience, family bonds, and the indomitable human spirit in the face of unimaginable horror.
Key takeaways from Ung's account include:
- The sudden and violent nature of the Khmer Rouge takeover, which transformed lives overnight.
- The regime's brutal implementation of an agrarian communist ideology, which led to widespread suffering and death.
- The constant fear and necessity of hiding one's true identity to survive under the regime.
- The strength of family bonds, even in the face of forced separation and loss.
- The particular vulnerability of children during times of conflict and genocide.
- The long-lasting trauma of such experiences, which continues long after the immediate danger has passed.
Ung's story also highlights the arbitrary nature of the violence and persecution under the Khmer Rouge. People were targeted not for any crimes they had committed, but simply because of their education, their former professions, or their ethnicity. This senseless brutality underscores the dangers of extremist ideologies and the importance of protecting human rights.
Despite the unimaginable hardships and losses she endured, Ung's story is ultimately one of survival and hope. Her escape to the United States and her subsequent ability to share her story with the world serve as a powerful testament to human resilience.
"First They Killed My Father" stands as an important historical document, providing future generations with a firsthand account of the Cambodian genocide. It serves as a stark reminder of the atrocities humans are capable of inflicting on one another, but also of the strength of the human spirit in overcoming even the most horrific circumstances.
Ung's memoir challenges us to remember this dark chapter in history, to honor the victims and survivors, and to remain vigilant against the forces of extremism and violence that can tear societies apart. It is a call to cherish our shared humanity and to work towards a world where such atrocities can never happen again.