In warm fields and crop filled farms in Cambodia, mothers gathered food for their families, their kids running around having fun. Suddenly, they stopped. Loud noises could be heard close by. Was it animals? Was it some of the kids trying to scare their mothers? Not long after, screams could be heard as people started to run. That’s when the source of the sound was found. It wasn’t animals or kids trying to scare their mothers. It was bombs. The country was under attack. This is what my family experienced before setting off for their journey out of Cambodia in 1975.
Genocide (“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group“) is something that’s been going on forever and it doesn’t seem to stop. These events have resulted in people having to flee their homes, leave their families and start their lives over in a whole new world. My goal is to educate people on the events that are currently taking place and events that have happened in the past that most people have no idea about or just big events that aren’t really talked about as much. I believe it’s important to understand the struggles of those around us and what they did to overcome them as well the struggles that people are still currently facing.
I want to start off with the genocide I know the most about which would be the Cambodian Genocide of 1975, when Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge political party in a reign of violence, fear, and brutality over Cambodia. “An attempt to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25% of the population from starvation, overwork, and executions. Pol Pot attempted to “purify” Cambodia of western culture, city life, and religion.”(The Genocide Education Project). Since my family are survivors, I have lots of stories about their journey to Thailand to get away from the violence. Thankfully, my family was able to get away before things got bad. My grandma has the most memories of the event so I knew she was the perfect person to interview. She explained to me how once they heard the bombs, they went into the house to watch the news. They then packed up as much as they could and didn’t look back. My aunt was just a little baby at the time which made the journey 10 times harder. It took them two weeks to get to the Thai border. That was two weeks of eating berries off bushes they weren’t sure were edible and sleeping in the middle of the forest, risking getting caught by Khmer Rouge soldiers. The Khmer Rouge did everything from murdering Buddhist monks and military officials to moving millions of people out of their cities and murdering those who didn’t obey or were too slow. “What is rotten must be removed” was a slogan proclaimed throughout the Khmer Rouge era. I’m very grateful my family was able to get away before the Khmer Rouge could get to them. As bad as this was, it happens to not be the worst.
Unfortunately, Cambodia isn’t the only country in Asia to have suffered the brutality of others as a few decades before, East Asia would face the violence of the Japanese Imperial Army with The Rape of Nanjing or The Nanjing Massacre. “In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China’s capital city of Nanjing and proceeded to murder 300,000 out of the 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city with orders issued to “kill all captives.” says The Genocide Education Project. These soldiers burned the city, drowned civilians, committed theft, stabbings and other horrifying acts. Even though all these crimes they committed were already horrid enough, they aren’t the main reason this genocide is most notorious. It’s the crimes against women that give this genocide its name. The Japanese troops raped over 20,000 women and girls who were then murdered so they could never tell of the horrible things that happened to them. “Entire families were massacred, and even the elderly and infants were targeted for execution, while tens of thousands of women were raped. Bodies littered the streets for months after the attack. Determined to destroy the city, the Japanese looted and burned at least one-third of Nanjing’s buildings.” says History: Nanjing Massacre. Japanese troops would also take women and girls from Korea, as young as 15, and bring them on their journeys for “comfort.” The city was left in ruins, and it took decades for the city and its citizens to recover from the savage attack. Japan has since apologized for what their troops had done but it will never take away the pain and guilt those women endured. They were treated like dolls and couldn’t even do or say anything about it, yet somehow, this isn’t one of the worst historical genocides.
This leads me into the most lethal and well known genocide in history, The Holocaust (1933-1945). “The Holocaust is considered to be the single largest genocide in history. Around 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe. The Holocaust took the lives of close to six million Jews during the World War II era,” says The Genocide Education Project. What started with boycotts of Jewish businesses ended in Jews being put into gas chambers, sent to concentration camps or just simply executed. Anti-Semitism was the key component of Nazi ideology. “The Nazis falsely accused Jews of causing Germany’s social, economic, political and cultural problems. In particular, they blamed them for Germany’s defeat in World War I (1914–1918)” says Holocaust Encyclopedia. Jews were targeted and killed simply because the Nazis didn’t like them. I can’t even begin to imagine what else was happening to them all those years. I know the Holocaust is a very well known tragic event but, like me, I feel some people probably had no idea why it started so I wanted to explain that. The Holocaust was truly a terrible time and I pray nothing like it ever happens again, but similar things are still happening around the world today.
I hope that with all this information, people have a better understanding on genocide and what it has done to certain ethnic groups. It’s very important to stay educated on such big topics like these since no one ever really talks about them since they’re so heavy. Unfortunately, Cambodia, China and Germany aren’t the only countries that have suffered from the violence and hatred of those that despise them for simply being who they are. Many more ethnic groups around the world have been victims of genocide that I wish I could talk about but that’s hard to do with such a heavy topic like this. Genocide is such a horrible thing and I pray things get better soon. We are all human and should be treated like it.
