First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers Kindle Edition

It has been more than 40 years since the black-uniformed columns of the Khmer Rouge rolled into Phnom Penh and changed the life of a 5-year old girl named Loung Ung forever. With the benefit of distance, it may be all too easy to dismiss the horrors of that era to a distant corner of memory, or to brush it off as a bizarre aberration of history. That would be a mistake. Communism as an ideology may be bankrupt, but the specter of Utopian extremism lives on. Many young men and women who flock to ISIS today are fired by the same misguided zealotry, the same disdain for common human decency in the name of a supposedly better world, that brought young men and women into the folds of the Khmer Rouge 40, 50, and 60 years ago. In fact, the parallels are chilling - like many leading figures of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban today, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were by and large teachers. They wrote beautifully, if somewhat naively, of a return to innocent rural simplicity. They impressed their students with their erudition, simplicity of living, and apparent dedication. How can such earnest people do any wrong? Many will find out at the cost of their lives.Loung Ung's autobiography is a moving memorial to all the lives lost in that deranged quest for Utopia. In the eyes of the Angkar (the Khmer Rouge "organization"), liquidating the members of the old regime is but a necessary prelude to building a society of true believers. And if the Angkar believes that each hectare can yield 3 tons of rice (even though the best yield before the war was only 1 ton/hectare), then it must be achievable if everybody just works hard enough. The starry-eyed school-teachers of yesteryear who dreamed of an agrarian paradise had become totally out of touch. And with the absolute power they wielded, nobody was about to tell them otherwise. The result was mass famine as local cadres starved the people to turn in their production quota. As millions perished, the top leadership witch-hunted for "saboteurs" and berated their subjects for lack of revolutionary fervor.Ung's book is full of vivid descriptions and keen observations that bring the vicissitudes of that era poignantly to life. Many passages are naturally cinematic. These include:- Her idyllic family life in pre-KR Phnom Penh. The author was young, but her memory is sharp. Her colourful description of early 1970's Phnom Penh with its many exotic (to an American audience) sights, sounds, and colors is an adventure in itself;- The arrival of the KR in Phnom Penh. A moment of high historical drama, but perhaps the author was too young to remember the details. This is where Chanrithy Him's dramatic account offers some truly memorable moments;- Getting through the KR check points on the way out of Phnom Penh, as KR soldiers systematically rounded up all former members of the old regime. Most would be executed within days;- A widow who took refuge with the author's family, tenderly talking to the baby that she carried with her everywhere, refusing to accept that he was already dead; (p.86)- The ritual brainwashing of children at a child labor camp, with the clapping, the chanting of "Angkar!", the endless repetition of propaganda;- Loung's savage attack against one of her tormentors, a bully in the children's labour camp who despised her because of her light skin. Even as a 7-year old she dreamed of the day when she'd have the power to come back to look for the bullies and "beat them until she was tired". She vowed never to forget. Her sweet-natured sister couldn't understand why she wanted to retain such horrible memories. But as Loung explained, she needed the anger, the thoughts of retribution, to fill the bottomless sadness in her soul.I've always said that anger, or at least righteous indignation, is a much under-rated emotion. It needs to be controlled. It needs to be properly-channeled. But it's the juice that drives much social progress.Finally, a few observations about the author's family background. A few readers took offense at the author's perceived lack of sensitivity. Perhaps she took too much pride in her family's light skin, high status, and economic prosperity. Reading her account of her family's encounter with the villagers in the KR base areas, it's quite evident there was much class resentment and perhaps plain-old jealousy on the part of the country folk. Even to this day many villagers in the old KR base areas seem to recall that era wistfully - Pol Pot's cremation site seems to have become something of a shrine. No doubt the villagers didn't enjoy the regimentation, but it was a topsy-turvy time when poor people like themselves could feel superior to the city folk who probably looked down on them. Not that the Khmer Rouge cadres themselves were particularly holy, of course. Plenty were mere opportunists. The Khmer Rouge village chief who lorded over the "new people" ate better, dressed better, and was apparently not above trading extra food for gold at exorbitant prices. (Ironically his corruption probably saved some lives, because life definitely got a lot harder after Angkar tightened things up and sent more soldiers into the villages.) As for Pol Pot, the young Loung Ung knew almost nothing about him, except that he was "fat" in a country of living skeletons.A postscript: Those readers who are interested in how Loung and her siblings fared after the war may be interested in reading her second book, Lucky Child. While some readers may find the events in her later life less dramatic, I found it equally fascinating to read about her endeavors to come to terms with her past while trying to make a new life for herself in America. Like many children from similar backgrounds, she went through a phase when she attempted to cut all ties with her past (to the point of deliberately avoiding contact with her siblings) and plunged headlong into mainstream American youth culture. As she got older, she discovered that she could only conquer the ghosts of her past by embracing her roots, and to rise above her personal losses (and petty personal vengeance) by making them her life-long cause. While my own life experiences were nowhere nearly as dramatic as Luong's, there are enough similarities that what she wrote rang true to me and resonated. Well worth a read.

It's hard to find the words to describe this book. My advice is to start reading it early in the day because you won't want to stop.

"First They Killed My Father..." - I think it's important that you read this narrative. I think it's important for everyone to read it. It's important that you understand how it happened, and more importantly, how it could easily happen to you and yours. Five stars is simply not enough.The author was just a little girl, five years old. She knew nothing about the politics or the wars or the conflicts. She was just playing with friends and playing dress-up for fun. And just like it was for you as a little kid, for that little Cambodian girl, everything was just happy and games and wonderful. And suddenly, yes, to the little girl, it was sudden. For her, there was no warning - how could there be? She didn't know anything about politics or civil war. She was happy and laughing one moment, then the family was forced out of their home - the only home she'd ever known. She was scared and nervous and sad, she couldn't understand what was happening. She wanted to go home, that's all, just that simple. "Why can't we go home now, Pa?" Yes, why not. Read this book.Please, for your own sense of security and the wellbeing of you and your family; for your own sense of what's right and just in the world, read this book. Don't think that it's all about civil war or combat or the horrors of war or terrorist crimes; it's about living life as a frightened refugee, fearful and afraid and worried in your own country. It's not a horrible reading experience, it's intensely compelling. And it's intensely important for you to read this story.Horrible things happen, it happens in our world, it's on the news all the time, it's in the news right now. Read this narrative, and the next time something like this is on the news, you'll know - deep in your heart and soul - you'll know, and you'll feel. And it won't be just plain old sympathy, it'll be knowing.This narrative is told in first person, from the perspective of the little girl as she lived it ...a little girl who struggles to live even as she tries desperately to understand what's happening to herself and her family and her friends. This story is important to know, to understand, to feel deep in your heart and soul.This book deserves to be read and thought about and understood (as well as anyone can) by every single living person in every nation of the world. It could happen to you and yours. The little Cambodian girl didn't think anything could keep her from laughing and loving and playing and having fun either ...but something did. Drastically, and for years, yes, for years! I can tell you right now, in all honesty, I could not have endured what that little girl endured. I could not, and probably would not, have lived through what she did. Many thousands did not - grown men and women did not live, yet this little girl fought every day to live, and she survived.Read this book! I can sincerely predict that you will be glad to have read this book. If you read it, when you read it, you'll be grateful that that little Cambodian girl wrote her story for you. Read it, you'll thank me. Read it, you'll thank that little girl for her extraordinary courage and resilience.This story is not like you think it is. There is little to no overt violence or undue descriptive passages of death and killing. This is not a work on or about combat or the civil war itself. This work is about the everyday lives of the refugees who are struggling to survive in their world that has been turned upside down and inside out. Read this story, you'll be thankful that you did. If I could, I'd give it far more than five stars.Patrick

This book is so heartbreakly tragic. I knew of Pól Pot but not much of the atrocities in Cambodia. This book must be a lesson to not let maniacs into government. Be kind to refugees, you don't know half of what they've been through. If you read this book and you cry for the people of Cambodia but still complain about refugees coming into 'your' country then you haven't learnt anything. We in the west live lives of privilege even though we go through hard times or are living below the poverty line we must count ourselves lucky.This book was a page turner, I couldn't put it down. When I saw the pictures of Loungs smiling family at the end it felt even more tragic but put faces to the names. I'd recommend this book, one of the best I've read in a long time.

This is an own voices account of the Pol Pot regime, the regime that killed two million Cambodians, a quarter of the country's population and its a hard read. It felt physically exhausting to tell you the truth.I visited Cambodia in 2018 and did not meet a single Cambodian who did not lose their parents in this genocide. I stood in the killing fields and saw the clothing of those murdered start to penatrate the soil surface as with each rainy season that passes, the mass graves become more exposed. You can smell the death in the air.Whether you've been or not this is a brutal read, it raw and its beyond distressing.Angelina Jolie and her adopted son Maddox (a Cambodian) have produced a netflix original film based on this book under the same name which is also well worth watching.Im not here to rate peoples lives, an auto five star from me.

First They Killed My Father will stay with me for a long time. This harrowing period in world history when, under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, millions of Cambodians were murdered and suffered unimaginable cruelty, was something I knew next to nothing about. I am grateful to Loung Ung for sharing her story – I cannot imagine how painful it must have been for her to re-live it. Yet, in telling her story, she is not only educating people but also ensuring that Cambodia’s suffering is not erased from history.Stories of horrific human suffering are always difficult to read but I actively urge people to read this book. Knowledge of suffering endured by our fellow human beings can only lead to greater understanding and compassion.

I knew this had happened as I was growing up but like most things that do not affect the West, it was just another story of barbarism happening far away and ultimately, mostly forgotten.How I wish that books like this one were compulsory reading for the youth of today to make them realise how lucky they are (or were, before the WEF started putting their plans into action..)

This isn't a type of book that I would normally choose to read but it was recommended by a friend and I'm glad that I took her advice. This is a book that immediately grabs hold of the reader and doesn't let go, and it will extract tears from even the driest of eyes. Who might enjoy reading it? Those travelling to Cambodia - especially if wandering off the beaten track. Creative writers - who might be particularly interested in the author's notes and comments on the use of voice and tense. And anyone who has read 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell - because the nightmare of 'Animal Farm' came to Ro Leap and a thousand other places.