The Forgotten Holocaust - a poem in memory of the Killing Fields victims and their families

The remains of victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide (Photo CNN)

We are pleased to share with you the following poem by a very talented young man from Florida, USA, on the Khmer Rouge Genocide. We thank Virak Prak and his parents for allowing us to post it here.

THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST
BY VIRAK PRAK

Can you taste it? Can you taste it in the air,
The unforgettable bitterness of which we call despair.
As millions were murdered in the land of the Khmer.
A genocide, which sits in history gathering dust.
Most can't recall the battle's deathly must.
As my people lay unremembered a drop in the ocean.
It seems that mass murder causes little commotion.
In a world desensitized by everyday death,
Can you smell it? Can you smell the dying's last breath?
Skulls scattered in ponds and sown in the soil,
And from the world was little recoil.
For years people suffered in the fields of the killing,
Just another body, just some more blood spilling.
Blood on the hands of he who dare grip mortality;
His name Pol Pot the man with the greatest audacity.
The brother who killed hundreds of his own kin,
He has no remorse morbid signs of a grin.
To claim he works for the good of a nation
Lives just a minor consequence in his “brilliant" reformation.
People just eggs who will inevitably be broken,
Each killing is just natural like words being spoken.
Groups, no crowds, lined up to be murdered,
Eight people with one shot so less bullets need be ordered.
Drowning them in puddles and beating them with batons,
His soldiers, children of death and pitiless drones.
Young boys killing women as old as their mother,
Blinded by loyalty not realizing it's each other.
Killing children and babies and mothers and fathers.
My sister. Your brother. Their sons. Our daughters.
Undiscriminating murder and ropes and beatings were common
And if they tried to plea for mercy it would be no problem.
Just sit them in a pond and tie a bag over their head.
And you can't talk now if you're dead.
Imagine a mother watching the death of her children,
Tied up with flesh burning rope and skinny with malnutrition.
Their toes being salted and cut open with a dirty knife.
Picture when the four letter word P-A-I-N becomes your life.
Can you see it? Can you comprehend being tortured as they laugh?
Now imagine walking through a paddy and hearing a jagged crack.
You lift your foot to find your brother's broken bones,
Didn't even know he had died and to find out in this tone.
You were just talking with him, ago, it was not long.
He was obviously killed while you were gone.
You shut his eyelids and untie a cord from around his neck,
You hold back the tears so the soldiers won't come check.
So they won't see and kill you too.
You ask him for forgiveness then rip out a gold tooth.
The gold will help you feed your very sick mom,
Giving her strength to run away with you
From the land that you call home.
She's too old as it is too work under these conditions,
suffering from arthritis a debilitating position.
You work and think about the Nixon Breakfast Operation, which dropped tons of napalm shells,
In fact they're probably the reason for the war itself.
Can you hear it? The screams of children and infants as you run through the jungle.
Sneaking out at night and this time the trouble's double.
You're reassured for a second not hearing a thing,
But then it fires out an explosive ring.
A mine, a souvenir from the Vietnam war,
Killing two infants and a boy, mutilated remains splashed on the floor.
A mother runs to the children and lifts her babies heads;
Frantically yelling and screaming trying to wake them from dead.
Her tears stream down as she cradles them next to her chin.
Later killing herself to join her babies again.
On the way, your mother dies of pneumonia and of cold,
Now you look back on the story that your life has told.
You lived a life of hell, burning, agonizing, and rotten,
To only wake up to see the genocidal horror has been forgotten.
How does that feel?

Courtesy of THE SCHOLASTIC ART & WRITING AWARDS COALITION in WRITING ANTHOLOGY 2000

Author: Virak Prak, 13
School: Florida (USA)
Award: American Voices Award Medal
Category: Poetry
Ceremony: Kennedy Performance Art Center in Washington D.C
Date: March 2000

About the author

Author was born to Cambodia killing fields survivor family. His poem was dedicated to his family and Cambodia Killing Fields /US Bombardment victims and survivors memory. The author voiced out his pains and agony over how lesser human of Cambodia tragedy to US government. Author saw US Justice was unfit of color blindness and prejudice. Not a coincidence, US denied Cambodia humanity and justice. Author saw injustice in US Justice under the veil of preferential and prejudice.