Loung Ung was five years old when the Pol Pot regime took power in Cambodia. His father was a wealthy government employee, ie a prime target for the Khmer Rouge. Loung and his family had to leave their house in Phnom Penh, emptied of its inhabitants in April 1975, setting out overnight without a destination. They were forced to leave all their belongings behind, pretending to be a peasant family in order to avoid capture, and were eventually sent to a labor camp. After a series of labor camps, Loung and his family became worn down by constant hunger and exhaustion, fear and separation, having to hide their emotions in order to avoid appearing weak. Soon Khouy and Meng, Loung's brothers, as well as Keav, his sister, were sent to another labor camp.
Keav died shortly after arriving. Subsequently, Loung's father was taken away by the Khmer Rouge and never returned, certainly killed. Loung's mother forced her, her sister Chou and her remaining brother to flee. The mother was left alone with her baby and was never found, probably also killed. Loung and Chou, too afraid to separate as they had been asked, joined a child labor camp. They stayed together, until Loung was sent to another camp to become a child soldier. Finally, after the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam in 1979, thus bringing about the end of the Khmer Rouge regime, Loung was reunited with his brothers and sisters, and fled with Meng and Eang, Meng's new wife, successively to Vietnam, in Thailand and then the United States.
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First, they killed my father (I read Document t. 11863)
Release Date | 2017-09-06T00:00:00.000Z |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 352 |
Publication Date | 2017-09-06T00:00:00.000Z |
Format | Kindle Ebook |