Many may not know the history of the Cambodian people. It certainly wasn’t covered when I was in grade school. I often wonder why everyone knows of the Holocaust, but so few know of the Genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge. Please bear with me for a little context you’ve probably never considered.

Quick side note: The Khmer are the dominant ethnic group in Cambodia. In their native tongue, they call themselves ខ្មែរ – pronounced Khmai. I believe it was the French who wrote it Khmer, which then in American English is usually mis-pronounced with an eh followed by that pirate-like R sound.

Once upon a time, a sprawling Khmer empire covered much of Southeast Asia. The Khmer empire reigned from around 800 CE to 1400 CE. Angkor was it’s capitol city, and each successive king built new and fabulous temples to the religious icons of the day (sometimes Hindu, sometimes Buddhist). Angkor Wat, an iconic symbol of Cambodia and the Khmer people, was built by this empire.

Then there was a period marked by numerous wars that pushed the capitol south to eventually rest in Phnom Penh.

Fast forward a few more centuries, the King of Cambodia makes an agreement with France for protection, to end the shrinking of the country. It isn’t until 1953 that the Khmer people again become an independent sovereign nation under King Norodom Sihanouk.

But independence did not bring peace. Cambodia was soon caught in the crossfire of the Vietnam War. King Norodom Sihanouk attempted to maintain Cambodia’s neutrality, allowing the North Vietnamese to use Cambodian lands, and simultaneously allowing the US to bomb these same lands. Ultimately the U.S. saw the prime minister Lon Nol as a more reliable anti-communist leader and supported him, possibly even his coup that ousted Sihanouk in 1970. When American forces abruptly withdrew from the Vietnam war and the region as a whole, Cambodia was left vulnerable, and Lon Nol lost power to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in 1975.

What followed was one of the darkest periods in human history. In their radical attempt to create an agrarian utopia, the Khmer Rouge forced millions of people out of the cities and into labor camps, where starvation, overwork, and mass executions claimed the lives of between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians—estimates vary, but this accounted for nearly a quarter of the population by 1979 when the Vietnamese liberated them. For perspective, these were the same Vietnamese who were often portrayed in my American history books as the ‘bad guys’ due to their communist ideology. Meanwhile the U.S. and its allies, in an effort to counter Vietnamese influence, continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge at the UN until 1993. * (see footnote)

Our family could not Worldschool in Cambodia without visiting the killing fields of Cheung Ek. Here, mass graves stretch across a quiet landscape, and a towering stupa filled with thousands of skulls stands as a solemn reminder of the atrocities committed.

Our girls wanted to buy flowers to place at the monument in memory and commemoration of those who died here.

We then moved to Tuol Sleng, once a high school in Phnom Penh but transformed by the Khmer Rouge into a prison known as S-21. Walking through the narrow corridors, we saw where prisoners were chained in rows, held in cells only large enough to sit cross-legged, and the haunting photographs of prisoners—men, women, and even children—who were tortured and killed.

On our way out we met Chum Mey, on of the few survivors of S-21. We got an autographed copy of his story, which I definitely recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Survivor-Triumph-Ordinary-Khmer-Genocide/dp/9995060248/.

My words cannot convey the impressions and impact of learning these stories on me or my family. I cannot capture the complexity of fear, anger, compassion, and in some cases hopelessness that arises as I contemplate how this came to occur, not that long ago, right under the noses of a world fighting for human rights.

I also can’t transfer the love I have in my heart for a people who have risen so far above this dark history. While I served my mission here in 2001 to 2003, anyone in their mid 20’s and up had lived through this experience. As an example, Sok Kha explained to me that he had survived being “killed” three times, learning to take the hit and pretend to be dead among the bodies, leaving him significantly crippled today.

Yet most people I talk with never mentioned the war or the genocide, or certainly define themselves by it. As my wife recently posted, this is a people characterized by warm and open hearts, striving to do good without judgement or hatred. Poignantly captured in Chum Mey’s account about those who tortured him, “I consider them victims like me, because they had to follow other people’s orders… How can I say I would have behaved differently? Would I have had the strength to refuse to kill, if the penalty was my own death?”

This learning journey reminds us of the danger of a single story—the danger of one-sided history, of reducing a people’s identity to one experience, or failing to see their strength and beauty beyond the tragedy. Cambodia is not a land of sorrow but of survival, of deep spirituality, and of dedication to a better future for the next generation.

To truly honor the victims of the Khmer Rouge, we must continue to tell their story. But we must also celebrate the people who live on, who rebuild, and who refuse to let their past define them.

* Footnote: Okay, there’s a lot of nuance and perspectives to this history, and the way the story is told can dramatically influence the reader’s view of who is right and wrong. Truth is, this isn’t a good vs. evil fairy tale. Mistakes are made on all sides, and everyone has a different viewpoint of the good and bad impacts of every action. I have written this with an intentional bias toward one perspective to combat the bias I grew up with: that Americans / Western civilization are always the hero.