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MY MEMORIES OF THE 17TH OF APRIL
Soknourn Chea
17 April 1975 is one tragic day that has stirred and disturbed
the entire world, raising the sky and shaking the ground. I was not yet born or even conceived at
this time. On the day that I was
able to see the light of the sun, this terrible period had already passed and I
could not know what had happened before.
When I was six years old, my father and mother brought me to school so I
could study like the other children.
As I studied harder, I grew older and more knowledgeable, my stomach
expanded and developed accordingly, and my appetite grew. I kept asking for more food. My mother told me gently and sweetly
with love and pity for her child, “Daughter, don’t eat too much. Your stomach will get bloated. Do you know, if you were born during the
Pol Pot regime, you would already be dead.” In the beginning, I did not really take
notice of what she said. After a
while, I began to wonder, because whenever I asked for something to eat my
mother always spoke these words. I
decided to ask her, “Mother, why do you always tell me this? You have told me many times: ‘Daughter do you know, on this terrible
day on the 17th of April, the Pol Pot people evacuated our family
like other families out of our homes and our native villages and forced us to
abandon our belongings. We separated from our families, our husbands and wives,
our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters, and our children. Not only this, but they forced us to
work day and night. We did not have enough to eat or enough time to sleep. They punished us, placed us in a prison,
tied our hands behind our backs, slashed our necks with a palm leaf, plucked our
nails, and starved us. There are many other punishments, too many to count and
too difficult to recount, because the acts these people have committed are
brutal beyond anything imaginable.’”
As my mother
spoke, tears flowed because she felt so much pain. Whenever she had time, my mother always
talked about her history and the history of her friends to her children. During that time, my grandfather,
aunts, and other members of my mother’s family died. Up to the third grade, when I studied
history, I also learned about this period. After a while, I became increasingly
curious. I wondered why these
people did this and how they benefitted if their acts were contrary to the
previous regime and the people they despised.
The one
opportunity, one time, one moment, one second, and one day I have achieved the
greatest fortune was when I was given the chance to work at the Documentation
Center of Cambodia. I have come to understand even more deeply about the acts of
the Khmer Rouge leaders. I am only
a volunteer, but I am very satisfied with my work. My responsibility is to prepare and
organize photocopies of different documents that are relevant to the acts
committed by the Khmer Rouge leaders.
This work has especially helped me to understand even more about Cambodia
and international law.
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