First They Killed My Father
Loung Ung was the next to youngest of eight children born into a middle-class family living in Phnom Penh, and the daughter of a former member of the Cambodian Royal Secret Service under Prince Sihanouk. Conscripted as a major into the new government of General Lon Nol, her father was the incarnation of all that the Khmer Rouge wanted to obliterate when they stormed Cambodia's capital city on April 17, 1975, beginning their reign of terror. Fleeing with her family into the countryside, along with thousands of others who were evacuating Phnom Penh, Loung learned the first of many hard lessons. In order to survive, she had to hide her identity, her education, her former life of privilege. It was no longer safe to trust anyone. "To talk is to bring danger to the family. At five years old, I am beginning to know what loneliness feels like, silent and alone and suspecting that everyone wants to hurt me." Posing as peasants, Loung's family moved from village to village, hoping
Her harrowing story of the degradation of the human spirit and the loss of innocence, of the atrocities she saw and her struggle to survive against all odds is one of incomprehensible tragedy and inspirational triumph. that no one would recognize and expose them as enemies of the Khmer Rouge government. With First They Killed My Father, Loung Ung bears poignant witness to this senseless slaughter. Almost one-fourth of the entire Cambodian population - men, women, and children - lost their lives in this tragic genocide. When those became scarce, they caught beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, and frogs for food. " Between 1975 and 1979, through starvation, disease, forced labor, torture and execution, the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians. However, as her family started talking about the war, she pretended to have no memory of it. "In Phnom Penh, I would have thrown up if someone told me I would have to eat those things. Surviving for another day has become the most important thing to me. "Children are not asked for opinions, feelings or what they individually endure. Finding her way to a work camp for orphans, Loung began training as a child soldier and was subjected to brainwashing. As the Vietnamese began liberating the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, Loung, her remaining siblings, and other relatives were miraculously reunited. " In 1980, Loung, her brother, Meng, and his wife left Cambodia and joined the thousands of other refugees being smuggled into Vietnam. "As I tell people about genocide and the aftermath of war , I get the opportunity to redeem myself. I've had the chance to do something that's worth my being alive.
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Acceptance Essays
