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First They Killed My Father is Loung Ung’s account of the horrific events that she and her family had to go through while living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and explains how it devastated their country, the way it separated their family, and how Loung got through it all.
First They Killed My Father is Loung Ung’s account of the horrific events that she and her family had to go through while living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and explains how it devastated their country, the way it separated their family, and how Loung got through it all.
When Ung was five-years-old, her life as she knew it changed forever. Up until that point, she had enjoyed a comfortable middle-class life, as her father was a high ranking military official. They had a modern apartment in the city’s capital of Phnom Penh and even attended school, though most of the city’s inhabitants were not so fortunate.
But one day in 1975, from her balcony she saw a swarm of soldiers enter the city and everything changed. It was the Khmer Rouge, a communist rebel army who was at war with the incumbent democracy and they had won. They were coming to enforce communism that demanded everyone live simple peasant lives.
Her father’s job and wealth put a target on their backs and within hours they fled the capital and left their life behind to hide in the country. Now, as enemies of the state, they had to keep their identity a secret or they would lose their lives.
The regime also set out to persecute anyone who was not ethnically Cambodian. This put a target on their backs as well since her mother was half Chinese. So they left their old identities behind and set out to work in the fields.
Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of their nightmare. The Khmer Rouge forced those who fled the cities to work in rural cities, where their masters took advantage of them. From dawn until dusk, they were forced to do back-breaking work digging, building, and planting.
But worse still was that there wasn’t enough food to go around. In just five months, two-thirds of the new workers had died of starvation or illness. As educated people from the city, they were considered the lowest class of all and they were treated horribly.
The only reason they avoided starvation was that her brother had a job at the village chief’s home. He endured beatings knowing he could bring table scraps to his starving family.
Soon she began losing members of her family. First her sister, who was taken to work in a camp and became ill and tragically was left to die in a “hospital” far from her family. Then her father, when the truth of his identity got out. The regime brutally murdered him and threw his body into a mass grave.
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Get the complete summary in the appLife was good for Loung Ung and her family until the Khmer Rouge won the Cambodian civil war.
Tragedy after tragedy struck Cambodian society and the Ung family after the Khmer Rouge took over.
Loung Ung’s future is in her hands now because of her generous brother and brave mother.
"First They Killed My Father" is a strong fit if you want practical ideas around biography, culture, history, especially themes like life was good for loung ung and her family until the khmer rouge won the cambodian civil war; tragedy after tragedy struck cambodian society and the ung family after the khmer rouge took over. The MinuteRead summary distills these concepts into a focused read, whether you're deciding whether to buy the book or applying its lessons at work.
Motivated to help readers with loung Ung’s account of the horrific events that she and her family had to go through while living in Cambodia, Book 1 of 3: A Daughter of Cambodia wrote “First They Killed My Father” to package those ideas for a fast, focused read. In “First They Killed My Father”, Book 1 of 3: A Daughter of Cambodia focuses on loung Ung’s account of the horrific events that she and her family had to go through while living in Cambodia. Through “First They Killed My Father”, Book 1…
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