Testimony & Khmer Rouge: ‘Family love amid despair, heartbreak and suffering’

‘The 17th of April 1975 remains a day etched in my memory. On that day, the Khmer Rouge, dressed all in black, entered Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.’

Miss HONG with the children from her Sunday school during an outing. Only one girl, in the back row, third from the right, survived; the others all died. My little sister and little brother are the first two people in the photo, on the left, in the second and third rows.

And from then on, the entire country descended into absolute horror. The entire population was driven out on the first day of the arrival of these peasant child soldiers. The entire monetary system was wiped out, and no currency was in circulation. Trade was impossible!

At that time, Cambodia had already suffered five years of incessant internal wars, supported on both sides by the Viet Cong and the Americans. The entire country was already torn apart and on its last legs. The population suffered from incessant American bombing and continuous rocket fire from the Khmer Rouge. Insecurity and misery reigned everywhere.

Arrival of the Khmer Rouge

The arrival of the Khmer Rouge was initially a source of joy and hope for everyone, who believed that after so many years of fear and suffering, they would finally be able to return to peace and a normal life! But unfortunately, this dream and joy quickly turned into horror and a nightmare.

That morning, the entire population opened their doors wide to welcome these young soldiers dressed in black, like peasants. They offered them food and drink and welcomed them as heroes. The joy was short-lived, because in the afternoon, these very young peasant soldiers suddenly turned into ferocious beasts. They had their fingers on the triggers of their rifles and shouted at the population:

‘Everyone out of your homes, leave quickly, because the Americans are coming to bomb the town! No one is to remain in their homes!’

The entire population was taken by surprise; no one expected such an immediate order! Many tried to resist, but it was useless; everyone had to leave! Everyone was chased away in the blink of an eye! People didn't even have time to realise how radically these young soldiers had changed or to react! Everyone was thrown out of their homes.

Some didn't even have time to pack their bags. Those who lingered or refused to leave their homes were shot on the spot. Gunshots rang out in every corner of the city. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to abandon everything and join the columns of people wandering the roads with no particular destination.

All the national roads were black with people, rich, poor, old, young, healthy, sick or disabled! Everyone was outside, on the road, dragging themselves along, limping! They advanced under gunfire and whips. In the hospitals, doctors and nurses still in their white coats also had to leave immediately with their patients, the wounded and pregnant women, dragging oxygen bottles, transfusions and IVs with them.

Some of the wounded had their bodies wrapped in gauze. There were no exceptions, everyone had to leave! Those who lingered were shot, others fell a little further away. Quickly, the trucks of these black soldiers came and crushed them, running over them several times to finish them off. The scene was horrific and unbearable. Everywhere you looked, there were corpses, bones, flesh, tufts of hair... It is impossible to describe these horrific images with words.

The city of Phnom Penh had once been prosperous. It was nicknamed the ‘Little Paris’ of the East. But from that day on, the city was transformed into a land of horror. More than two million people wandered the streets looking for a way out! In this mass of humanity, how many people disappeared, how many were separated, how many died? Leaving home in a hurry, what could you take with you? Especially if you had elderly people or young children to take care of, how could you carry more?

Before this exodus, the situation in the country was already very unstable. Everywhere, the government was recruiting young Cambodians to go to war. Young people were at risk of being arrested by the police at any moment and forcibly enlisted into the army without any training or knowledge of weapons, only to be sent immediately to the front line. Many young people died for nothing! Those who had the opportunity to send their children of military age out of the country did so.

A week before the fall of Phnom Penh, my second eldest brother and my youngest brother managed to leave Cambodia, but not without difficulty. Before they left, we moved in with my second eldest brother. After he left, we were able to take care of his young family, his wife and their small children.

We were looking for a place to take refuge, because rockets were falling too often around our house. The day before they left, we laughed and cried a lot. We laughed because they were able to leave the country. They would be at peace! We cried because we wondered when we would see each other again. How hard it was for my sister-in-law! The love she had for her husband was exemplary!

The Exodus

On the day we were driven from our home, we were incredibly lucky to be able to leave together. All eight of us were at home: my mother, me, my second youngest brother Jean, my third youngest brother André, my little sister Rose, my sister-in-law Agnès, my little niece Angélique and my little nephew Pascal.

Many people had family members working here and there. It was impossible to go and find them under the threat of these ruthless young peasants. Mum was far-sighted; she had experienced exodus several times during the Sino-Japanese War and could already guess the suffering that awaited us. Without losing her bearings, she ordered us to gather all our portable belongings, food and medicine, kitchen utensils and anything to protect us at night. Thanks to her foresight, we managed not to die of hunger and disease too early on the road.

My third little brother, the most intelligent and calmest, was not paralysed by fear. He had not forgotten to scrape the bottom of the cupboard. He had managed to take a few pieces of cloth, some flints and some haberdashery, which were a great help to us later on the road.

We met some Christians and the family of Miss HONG from the Sacred Heart Church on the road. They immediately told me that several parishioners had been shot on the spot because they refused to leave the church; they wanted to keep the building despite the threats.

We didn't even have time to cry when we heard the news; we were forced to continue on our way under gunfire and whips! On the road, hygiene problems were inevitable. It was April, the hottest month of the year, under a scorching sun, with no shelter, no drinking water, no medicine. We had to eat, drink and relieve ourselves on the side of the road. The road was a disgusting sight! Cholera, dysentery and fever soon broke out. Everywhere there were moans from the sick, cries of pain, and weeping...

Miss HONG was responsible for her two elderly parents and a brother with Down's syndrome. They had great difficulty walking and keeping up with the crowd. Miss HONG had to carry their belongings, giving one arm to her mother and the other to her elderly father, whose legs were swollen. She was unable to look after her brother, who was struggling to keep up. Within the first few days, her mother contracted dysentery. Miss HONG had to look after her very ill mother and her father. She was unable to care for her brother, who refused to walk. With the constant threat of the Khmer Rouge, Miss HONG had no choice but to abandon her brother so she could take care of her mother. But she was unable to save her mother's life. She died shortly afterwards due to a lack of medicine. With some gold, she managed to find a pickaxe and, with the help of a few kind people, she was able to bury her mother by the side of the road. This was only the beginning of the exodus, and she had already lost two of her loved ones! Unable to mourn any longer, she didn't even have time to cry before she had to continue walking with her poor father.

A few days later, I met one of my students and her mother. They were very upset to tell me that they had seen Miss HONG's brother, drowned by those barbaric Khmer Rouge in a pond because he was shirtless and refused to walk.

Until Miss HONG's death, I never had the courage to tell her about her brother's tragic disappearance.

In addition to this sad story, this student and her mother had a hard time confiding in me that they had abandoned their mother and grandmother at home. The grandmother was an old Chinese woman who had bound feet. Even in normal times, she had great difficulty moving around the house without help. How could she travel? The grandmother preferred to stay and die at home rather than be a burden to her children on the road to exile. She told them:

‘Go, don't worry about me, I'd rather die than be a burden to you. I'd rather die shot at home than abandoned on the road!’

This grandmother had predicted things well, because on the road, under bridges, in fields, under trees, how many elderly or disabled people, how many children, dead or alive, had been abandoned! Next to them, a little food, a little water! It was the best gift their families could leave them!

I had a friend who was forced to leave her mentally ill older sister under a bridge with a pot of rice and a bottle of water because the poor woman couldn't walk anymore. The Khmer Rouge didn't give anything away. They pushed us forward at all costs.

What sad courage it took for a man to abandon his loved ones, his children, dead or alive, sick or disabled! Did he really have a choice? The Khmer Rouge gave us neither time nor choice.

‘One order: leave and move forward quickly. Those who cannot walk or who are too weak to walk, we will take care of them. That's what the revolution is for!’ ’ they said.

Under blows from clubs and rifles, we were forced to move forward, wandering aimlessly. After almost two months of walking, we were ordered to stop at the edge of a forest, a swampy, damp place. They ordered us to stay there and build our homes with nothing. We didn't even have the bare minimum of equipment, such as a machete, an axe or a pickaxe. How could we build even the most rudimentary hut?

Those who had gold or watches were able to trade these items with the dictators for tools. But what about those who didn't have anything? They had to beg these young dictators, crying and pleading and letting them insult them, just to borrow one or two tools.

Luckily, we had the flint stones that my little brother André had remembered to take with him at the last minute before leaving home. We were living in prehistoric times, lacking everything. We had trouble getting fire. The Khmer Rouge had lighters, but without flints, they couldn't work. Thanks to these flints, we managed to borrow a few tools, not without difficulty, but at least we didn't lose our dignity by bowing down and letting ourselves be insulted.

Survival

The instinct to survive was stronger than anything else! With the rainy season approaching, we had to build a shelter and find food as quickly as possible, because our bag of rice was empty. Fortunately, we had a mother who knew how to get by. She had lived in the countryside when she was young and had plenty of skills for this kind of situation. She went into the forest to teach us how to find mushrooms, bamboo shoots, leaves and edible herbs, how to choose wood for building the hut, where to find thatch and palm leaves for the roof... In short, we managed to build a small hut to shelter us from the sun and rain. We city kids learned quickly, out of necessity, to adapt to the radical change in order to survive.

With a lack of food and medicine, many people succumbed to starvation or disease. But others died of despair or committed suicide, because we were constantly insulted by these young Khmer Rouge country folk. Many were killed with sticks or pickaxes for no reason. These young dictators considered us, the city dwellers, to be enemies, imperialists, capitalists, and harmful intellectuals. We were good for nothing, even the children, and deserved only contempt and death at any moment. It was better to let us die of hunger and disease, so that they could eradicate the parasites, the enemies, that is to say, us, without too much trouble and without expending too much of their revolutionary energy.

Despite the misery, we managed to build our hut. It was just a rickety, miserable shelter, but at least we were no longer suffering from the rain and sun, and the children had a refuge. Our new life of poverty did not discourage us or bring us down. After a hard day's work in the fields, we were happy to find ourselves all eight of us on the same rickety bed, huddled together. In hushed voices, we sang and prayed together. My little sister Rose, I didn't know how or when, had managed to store so many Chinese, English, French and Cambodian songs in her brain. Every evening, she taught us new songs. As long as we could live together, fear and sorrow did not discourage us. We were unshakeable in the face of this unbearable situation! We, brothers and sisters, had the courage to resist together, to face this new life of slavery!

"But, alas, this life did not last! When we were starting to get used to life in the countryside, we were chased away again! There was no chance of negotiating, we had to leave!"

At the beginning of the exodus, when we left the house, we had two bicycles to push our nephew and niece, and a few meagre belongings, but this time, before we left, our two bicycles were confiscated. What could we do? My brothers and sisters cried a lot. The road would be even harder without the two bicycles! It would be much more difficult and painful to move forward! We were already exhausted and hungry! But what could we do? An order was an order! So we set off again on the new road of exile, walking, dragging our feet, carrying our belongings and crying!

The hardest part was for Miss HONG, who had to abandon her father, as he had never recovered from the long forced march. His wound had become infected and he was unable to stand up despite his efforts. Once again, she wondered if she should abandon her father. Did she really have a choice? To save his daughter from death, the dignified old man urged her to follow the crowd. What became of him? We never heard from him again.

Here we were once again on the road, wandering, with no destination and no reason to go on. No one had any answers. After a long walk, we saw a convoy of trucks arrive and were ordered to climb aboard. After a day and a night of travelling, we arrived in a remote corner of Pursat province, on the edge of a dense forest in the north-west of the country. It was the bush, the grass was taller than a man, the humidity was unbearable, every disease imaginable awaited us... Once again, we were designated to live in this inhospitable place and fend for ourselves.

First traditional festival

Food distribution became increasingly rare. We were nothing but skin and bones, with large heads and emaciated bodies. In addition to our exhaustion, starvation was also taking its toll. The number of deaths increased day by day at an incredible rate. People lived with the few possessions they had left, gold or cloth to trade for rice!

At the beginning of 1976, during Chinese New Year, we celebrated our first traditional festival since our exodus. We hadn't eaten white rice for many months. Mum decided to treat the children to a good meal for this family celebration. She traded our last piece of new sarong for a bowl of rice (250 g) and a tiny mouse, 10 cm long without its tail.

On New Year's Eve, as a celebration, we cooked the rice and grilled the mouse with great solemnity. It was the best meal of our lives, prepared by Mum. Each of us received two spoonfuls of rice and a tiny piece of mouse meat. My little brother, Jean, cried tears of joy as he tasted his first spoonful of rice:

‘One day, if I survive, if I leave this miserable life, I will tell the whole world that the best food is white rice!’

My little nephew Pascal and my little niece Angélique, as if by miracle, had regained the smiles they had lost since the beginning of the exodus, simply because of those two spoonfuls of rice!

It was our last meal together as a family, like the Last Supper, Jesus' last meal with his disciples, because after that we never had the opportunity to gather together again for a meal. We were forcibly dispersed to work in different camps, organised according to gender and age.

Shortly after that Chinese New Year meal, Pascal, barely two years old, and Angélique, three, were the first members of the family to die of starvation, so young. Before this tragedy, my spirited little niece had asked me a question:

‘Auntie, why don't they give us anything to eat? Why doesn't Daddy come and get us?’

Unable to find the words to answer her, I simply kissed her and cried.

After losing her two children, my sister-in-law Agnès sank into despair. She cried and screamed her husband's name, my brother. What could I do? Could I comfort her? Would my encouragement bring her any relief? Shortly after the tragedy, she passed away. Before she died, I baptised her, as I am Catholic. She asked me to pass on this message:

‘I am going to leave this world soon, but you, one day, if you manage to survive and see your brother again, tell him that I still love him, that everything that happened to me is not his fault... that's just the way life is, I don't blame him and I forgive him for everything. Tell him to carry on living with courage!’

Before she died, despite all her suffering, her love remained so intense and unshakeable! I didn't know what to say, I cried a lot as I comforted her.

In these marshy areas, disease spreads very quickly. I myself fell very ill with malaria. I couldn't go to work anymore. Those who didn't work weren't entitled to food!

Survival

I had to leave the camp and go home to wait for death. My beloved little brother and sister wanted to give me their portion of food, which was two ladles of very watery rice where you could count the grains! I could never swallow their rice, which was their only means of survival! They were only 11 and 12 years old and needed this meagre food even more than I did. At mealtimes, when they came back from the canteen with their portions of rice, there was always crying and screaming in pain. No one wanted to swallow this liquid sustenance! They begged me at every meal:

‘Big sister, we may all die, but not you, you are the support and pillar of the house, mum needs you, the family needs you to go on living! You must eat!’

What could I do? I begged them to share their rice with me, crying:

‘Without you, I can't survive! Let's live together and share your meagre meal!’

When I was at the end of my strength, when I was close to coma, when I gave up fighting death, against all odds, my mum always came and whispered in my ear:

‘Live, you must live! Don't give up, don't give in! You must fight! You must go on living!’

It was thanks to love, family love, maternal and fraternal love, that I managed to recover and survive.

I had barely recovered when I was ordered to leave home and go to work in a distant camp. My second younger brother, Jean, who had been assigned to another camp, received the same order. We met on the road while my mother was sent to build a dam in the mountains. It was very hard work and many people died in a short time. She could no longer stay with her young children.

My little brother knew how to sift, so he was able to stay in the village. My little sister was sent to a children's camp not too far from the village. As she had a fairly good command of the Khmer language, she was chosen to teach reading and writing to these cruel and ignorant Khmer Rouge militants in the afternoons, after her morning work in the fields.

But she was not spared the beatings. On the contrary, she was the one who received the most lashes, kicks and punches. She was always covered in blue, green and purple bruises because she was simply considered an intellectual! These child soldiers of her age shouted as they beat her, calling it a ‘deserved punishment’ for someone who could read and write.

We never knew how the Khmer Rouge had found out that she could read and write. Despite the beatings she received and the suffering inflicted on her, she remained courageous. And in the evening, she would try by any means possible to return to the village to be with her brother, so as not to leave him alone at home, because André was in poor health. If she was caught, she would be beaten again, her hands would be burned, she would be forced to eat chillies, her hair would be burned... She was constantly unrecognisable with her swollen face.

But she did not give up despite these tortures. She never lost the courage to venture home at nightfall and return to her camp at dawn.

No mother could let her children suffer like that. Mine also wanted to go home to see her children. Her camp was much further away, and the road was dangerous because of the young militant guards. It was very difficult for her to leave the camp. If she was ever caught, she risked death or being beaten mercilessly by these young monsters, then tied to a pillar and exposed to the sun to set an example to other night-time fugitives. She had lost count of how many times she had been arrested and whipped. And how many other mothers had died under the lash and exposure to the sun!

One day, her little brother André fell seriously ill, and none of us were there for him. Before he died, he left a note for her:

‘Dear Mum, I have a high fever and faint several times a day. I can't swallow anything, not even the little rice soup they give me. Mum, I'm always thinking of you.’

‘Mum, I kept all this rice soup for you, but unfortunately you still haven't been able to come and see me. Mum, I won't see you again, I'm going to leave this world before you. Mum, take good care of yourself. Signed: your beloved son.’

André died alone! He left with all his kindness and love! We didn't know when he died, how or where he was thrown away. André was taken by illness. He was a very clever and resourceful child. He was the only one in the family who knew how to find food in the fields and forests so as not to starve to death.

Drama and famine

Time passed, and the famine continued. Two ladles of liquid rice became two spoons, but the amount of work did not decrease, nor did the brutality! Sometimes even the two spoons of liquid rice were taken away as punishment.

We were all skeletal, like vampires in cartoons. The hunger was unbearable, and we would put anything in our mouths to stave off the hunger. People nibbled on cattle whips and tree bark and drank water to fill their stomachs. We were no exception; water was almost the only thing we could get down. Shortly after André's death, my mother was sent home because she had fallen ill. My little sister kept trying to get home to see her mother. One night, she got up to go to the toilet. Because she was so hungry, she fell down and had no strength to get up. My mum helped her up, crying, and said:

‘Darling, hang in there, I'll beg the chief for some rice for you.’

My little sister held my mum's hand and said:

‘No, Mum, it's no use. Stay with me until I die. I fell because I have no strength left. I haven't eaten anything for several days. Now it's too late, even the best food in the world doesn't tempt me anymore. I'm in pain everywhere, and I don't want to swallow anything. I'm going to die soon. I'll go before you. Take good care of yourself, my dear little mum.’

With these words, she breathed her last, holding my mother's hand until the very end. The next day, the Khmer Rouge gravediggers came to remove my little sister's body. Every morning, these gravediggers went from house to house and along the roads looking for the dead, because there were dead people every day. They refused to let my mother follow their cart or tell her where they were taking the body for one simple reason:

‘A dead person is a dead person, what's the point of knowing where they will be buried or thrown away? Let them become fertiliser in a field, that would be the best service a dead person could render to the revolutionary state!’

And so ended the life of my beloved little Rose!

In the space of a few months, we had lost five members of our family. My mother's grief was overwhelming. She had cried so much that she had no tears left. Except for my little sister, who had died in her arms, she never knew when or how her other children had left this cruel world.

I learned this sad news one day when I risked my life escaping from the camp hospital, which was less closely guarded. I had to walk all day to see my mother in the village. On my return, I was able to tell my second little brother Jean, who was also in the camp hospital because he was wounded, about all the misfortunes that had befallen our family. We cried all night, the two of us in the darkness of the hospital.

My mother was a very brave and strong woman. She had great faith. Despite her suffering, she never gave up. Her love and faith saved Jean and me. She also helped many others who had no family, young and old, by taking them into our makeshift hut during the last days of the Khmer Rouge.

She would never have abandoned those who were suffering.

In a world of suffering, the love of my mother, my brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces was so strong that I cannot describe it in words!

I found it very difficult to write this article and cried a lot before I could finish it. My entire story is true. It is just one ‘little story’ among many others about the victims of that same period. Many people lived through this tragedy. Some have written about it, but many others have preferred to remain silent so as not to remember these terrifying events and their dead who have no graves. All have buried their pain deep within themselves. I chose to write only this short passage to praise the love of my loved ones, especially my little brother and sister. Without them, I would never have survived!

Julie CARCOUET

Acknowledgements Jean-Michel Gallet