Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields

March 31, 1997
Dith Pran, the photojournalist whose horrifying story gave Pol Pot's genocidal regime a human face in The Killing Fields, continues with his wife DePaul in their mission to remind the world what happened in Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge took control in 1975, the 29 contributors to this collection ranged in age from toddlers to teenagers. Separated from their relations by the Khmer Rouge, who hoped to use them as the basis of a new society, children had to work in the rice fields. These recollections provide a child's-eye view of their families' suffering. Living conditions were hellish: the children were fed one daily bowl of water with a few grains of rice; innocent people were tortured and killed; and often children were forced to watch as relatives were executed. What is apparent throughout is that while the Khmer Rouge was able physically to separate families, the children's memories of love and respect remained. The authors, most of whom now live in the United States, are shown in photographs with accompanying biographical data recounting how they rebuilt their shattered lives. While the testimonies of suffering and loss may become repetitive, this collection is still an important reminder of the darkest chapter in post-WWII history.

February 1, 1997
In this collection of 29 reminiscences by Cambodian refugees and assembled by a photojournalist for the New York Times, the brutality of the Khmer Rouge supports the theme that the forces of holocaust have emerged as a dominant aspect of civilization. The authors were children ranging from ages five through 17 during Cambodia's dominance by the Communist Khmer Rouge. Most of them came from middle-class urban families and suffered a series of horrifying experiences until the invasion by the Vietnamese and their subsequent escape through Thailand to the United States. Their stories coalesce into a common account of being driven from their home, often witnessing the murders of their family, and enduring disease, starvation, and beatings. In the main, their writings are simple, straightforward narratives. Despite the absence of historical or sociological method, the work bears a sense of painful credibility. Recommended for public libraries--John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant

February 1, 1997
With the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal Communist political group that wreaked havoc in Cambodia in the early 1970s, again poised to overtake Cambodia, "Children" is a timely reminder of the country's recent bloody past. More than two dozen accounts of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror have been compiled by Dith Pran, whose own account of surviving Khmer Rouge "reeducation" and escaping to Thailand became the movie "The Killing Fields." Children played a key role in Cambodia's genocidal endgame. They were to be the first generation of the "new" Cambodia and were subject to physical labor, violence, and forced separation from family to underscore the point. Most disturbing is the similarity of the accounts. The brutality is almost mesmerizing, demonstrating the universally horrid existence of those children's lives. ((Reviewed February 1, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)