First They Killed My Father

I kid you not, I started this book approximately twenty-eight minutes after I finished Pascal Khoo Twe's From the Land of Green Ghosts. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers is on my reading list for this year, and since I was able to get it from the library very quickly, I decided to go ahead and begin reading it, even though my emotions were already tenuous at best after finishing one book about genocide. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to pick up Harry Potter instead, and my hands gravitated toward the book with the little refugee girl on the cover.

First They Killed My Father recounts the experience of Luong Ung, a refugee who lived through the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh and its subsequent systematic killing of over two million Cambodians- almost a fourth of the country's entire population. Ung was one of seven children in an upper middle-class family; her father worked for the government as a high-ranking official, and the family led a relatively privileged life.

In April of 1975, Khmer Rouge soldiers entered the city and forced thousands of people to flee their homes and begin an arduous journey into the countryside. The Khmer Rouge ('Red Khmer' in French- Khmer is Cambodia's largest ethnic group) was a totalitarian regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979. Its attempt at agricultural reform led to famine, and with its resolute stance on self-sufficiency in all aspects, thousands upon thousands of people suffered from starvation and treatable diseases during the Khmer Rouge reign. The regime would kill those individuals and families who were suspected of being capitalists, employees of the former democratic government, professionals (anyone with virtually any amount of education), and the ethnic and religious minorities. Though perhaps not one of the more famous cases of genocide, that which was committed by the Khmer Rouge was one of the most lethal regimes of the century; nearly one fourth of the country's population was murdered in the space of less than five years.

Because Ung's father had been a government official, the family fled Phnom Penh with others the day the Khmer Rouge took control of the city. The family relocated to live with their extended family, who lived in a small village, and the Khmer Rouge therefore saw them as 'unpolluted'. Eventually, Ung's family is forced to move from their family's village for fear others would realize they are from the city. Ung goes on to tell her harrowing story of survival, even in the midst of great pain and fear.

Despite the acknowledgement of the immense pain throughout the entire book, one of the hardest parts to read was one of the very last chapters, in which Ung is describing life in the refugee camp in Thailand. Here is a brief excerpt:

"Eldest brother!" I call, running up to him. "Did you also get dunked in the water by the Father?"
"Yes, he has made me a Christian." Meng chuckles with his friends.
"Why? I thought we were Buddhists."
"We are, but being a Christian will help us get sponsors faster. Many refugees are sponsored by church groups. Christians like to help other Christians."

Ouch. 'Christians like to help other Christians.' Does that punch you in the gut as it did to me? Yes, as Christians, we are to help our brothers and sisters. But I pray that no one would ever say of me that I refused to help someone because they are of a different faith; that is not love, friends! We are called to love our neighbor- not just those who sit beside us on the pew each week. I pray that the world would know we are Christians by our love- not just our love for other believers, but our love for all the nations.