After the Vietnam war ended in 1975, and U.S. troops began to leave, a communist force influenced by the teachings of Mao Tse Tung called the Khmer Rouge swept through the country and seized the Cambodian government.
Unlike the Holocaust, where most people know about the six million Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, the two million Cambodians tortured, beaten, and murdered by the Khmer Rouge is not as publicized.
The Khmer Rouge ravaged Cambodia with intent of a mass genocide to rid the country of the old generations and build a new and better country with no Cambodians. They forced city-dwellers to the countryside and killed anyone who might pose a threat to their ideals such as intellectuals, religious leaders, and professionals.
These two women will never forget their past, but continue to have a difficult time living in their present.
3 years ago