NIU, Chicago museum exhibit documents stories of Cambodia’s ‘killing fields’ survivors

A mass grave near Phnom Penh. (Photo courtesy of the Documentation Center of Cambodia.)

16 Sept 2011
NIU Today (Northern Illinois U.)

A five-year effort to collect the oral histories of Cambodians who survived the Khmer Rouge era and now live in the Chicago area will culminate this week with an exhibit at the Cambodian American Heritage Museum (CAHM) and Killing Fields Memorial in Chicago.

The exhibit resulted from a collaboration between the museum and Northern Illinois University and is “dedicated and focused on the voices of the Killing Fields survivors,” said Dary Mien, executive director of the Cambodian Association of Illinois.

Led by Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge, the genocide claimed the lives of about 2 million Cambodians between the years of 1975 and 1979.

Memorial Built for Prisoners Executed at Pagoda

Human skulls and bones of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime are displayed in a stupa at Sgnuon Pech pagoda, about 20 kilometers (13 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Thursday, 20 May 2010

“It is not only to respect the souls of the victims, but it will also be evidence.”

Nearly 100 villagers gathered together on the outskirts of Phnom Penh Wednesday, to place the bones of Khmer Rouge victims at a pagoda memorial not far from the UN-backed tribunal.

The villagers had a Buddhist ritual performed at the Wat Sgnoun Pich pagoda, where they placed the remains of some 60 people to represent the more than 1,000 who were filled here under the Khmer Rouge.

The pagoda had been a Khmer Rouge prison site, holding hundreds of people at a time.

“My sister and my brother-in-law, plus three children, were killed here,” said Men Kan, a 68-year-old resident here. He set bones on a pedestal at the new memorial, along with five other men under the watch of seven monks.

“I’m holding these bones, and I don’t even know if they are my sister’s, and it makes me sob,” he said.

Suon Sethy, deputy director general at the Council for the Development of Cambodia, initiated the construction of the memorial.

“It is not only to respect the souls of the victims, but it will also be evidence” of Khmer Rouge crimes, he said at the ceremony.

More than 1,500 people were ultimately held at the pagoda and killed at various sites on the pagoda grounds, said Sar Meng, a high school administrator and organizer of the memorial. The dead were put in mass graves of between 150 and 500 people, he said.

Also present was Andrew Cayley, the international prosecutor for the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

“Here we see the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, and this suddenly makes me feel that I want to redouble my efforts in what I’m doing at the court,” he said.

The tribunal is currently building a case against at least four more jailed leaders of the regime—Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith—with a trial for atrocity crimes, including genocide, expected next year.

This memorial was one of more than a hundred that have been going up around villages in Cambodia, where authorities and residents have held onto the bones of the victims, Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said Wednesday.

Cambodians' day to mourn Friday

Two local groups will gather to commemorate a somber annual rite.

04/15/2009
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

Want to go?

• Who: Killing Fields Memorial Center
• What: Memorial prayers, testimonials and candlelight vigil
• When: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m.-dark Friday and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday
• Where: Wat Vipassanaram (Wat IRAP), 1239 E. 20 th St.
• Info: Bryant Ben, 562-999-6148, or Paline Soth, 562-360-5355

LONG BEACH — On Friday, two local Cambodian groups will gather to commemorate a somber annual rite.

April 17 marks the 34th anniversary of the date the Khmer Rouge rolled into Phnom Penh and cemented its ascendancy in Cambodia. It is also the date that is associated with the Killing Fields genocide campaign that left more than 2 million Cambodians dead from execution, starvation, disease and deprivation under the brutal 45-month reign of the Khmer Rouge.

As a result, for many Cambodians in Long Beach and worldwide, April 17 is a day of mourning, prayer and remembrance.

The Killing Fields Memorial Center began formally remembering April 17 in 2005 with a candlelight vigil, after it helped lead a fight to prevent the first Cambodian New Year Parade from being held on the 30th anniversary of the rise of Khmer Rouge.

This year, the group will stage its fifth annual memorial day at Wat Vipassanaram, also known as Wat IRAP, 1239 E. 20th St, with a day of prayer, testimonials and a candlelight vigil.

Also on Friday, for the first time, the United Cambodian Community will commemorate the day with remembrances and a fundraising dinner at New Paradise Restaurant.

At Wat Vipassanaram, survivors share tales every year about experiences in Cambodia during the genocide years. Often their voices quake with emotion.

One time, Chhom Nimol, a popular singer with the group Dengue Fever, showed up at the event and sang several traditional Khmer songs a cappella.

Chantara Nop is a poet who has written about the Killing Fields and is a regular at the memorial.

He said it is vital for the community to remember and share survivor stories so that history won't be repeated in Cambodia and so that children learn about the history of their forbears.

It is also important for the victims, according to Nop.

"It feels much relief when people are supportive," Nop said. "You go through so much pain if you don't tell and you keep secrets."

For UCC, the experience is new but continues efforts it has undertaken this year to heal wounds and close the generational gap.

"This year we're piggybacking on what we've done to help heal the community," said executive director Sara Pol-Lim. "We're addressing the past. We hope by facing it we can put it behind us."

Pol-Lim is also inviting the Jewish community to the UCC event, because of the history of suffering the two cultures share.

In addition to the dinner, the UCC event will feature Buddhist blessings and Jewish prayers, speeches and proclamations by elected officials, the honoring of survivors, poetry by youth and a veterans' salute.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

Want to go?

• Who: Killing Fields Memorial Center
• What: Memorial prayers, testimonials and candlelight vigil
• When: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday, 6 p.m.-dark Friday and 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday
• Where: Wat Vipassanaram, 1239 E. 20 th St.
• Info: Bryant Ben, 562-999-6148, or Paline Soth, 562-360-5355

• Who: United Cambodian Community
• What: Commemoration Day dinner
• When: 6:30 p.m. Friday
• Where: New Paradise Restaurant, 1348 E. Anaheim St.
• Admission: $40 individual ticket, 10-person table rates vary.
• Information: 562-433-2490

Chicagoans Remember the Cambodian Genocide

Cambodian Association of Illinois Executive Director Kompa Seth as an 18-year old. (WBEZ/Nissa Rhee)

Worldview 2/10/2009
Chicago Public Radio (USA)

Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood is home to the only Cambodian genocide memorial outside of Cambodia.The Killing Fields Memorial is located in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood on the northside. Worldview Producer Nissa Rhee visited the memorial to see how Chicagoans are remembering the genocide.

When the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government of Lon Nol in 1975, Cambodians were war weary. With the help of the U.S., they had been fighting both the Communist Khmer Rouge insurgents in the northwest and Viet Cong soldiers on their border for several years.

Kompha Seth was a sergeant in the Cambodian army. He had just finished attending a U.S. military training in Thailand when the Khmer Rouge took power.

Because of his connections with Americans and the previous anti-Communist government, Kompha feared for his life. He was given the choice to stay in Cambodia or go to the United States.

SETH: Pretty, pretty hard to make a choice in those time, you know, because my family lived at home and pretty hard to make a choice. So, I don’t know why but I’m still not understand how I made the decision at that time. So I forced myself to come to the U.S. with my pain, by myself. I left my family back home. It’s pretty hard for me.

Kompha left his two sons—age 8 and 2—behind with his wife. They were all killed.

He thought that his brother’s family died as well, but his sister-in-law contacted him after the genocide. She showed him some family mementos she had buried near her house for safekeeping before the Khmer Rouge soldiers came. After the genocide, she returned home and dug them up. He showed me a picture of him as an 18-year old taped to his office wall.

SETH: This is my picture. She told me that she you know hide it in the ground with a plastic bag. When the events over she go back and then she pulled all of the evidence you know, my letter, my picture, everything. So that’s why I believe that it’s real.

His sister-in-law told Kompha that the Khmer Rouge forced them to walk many miles to an agricultural labor camp. Many people died from starvation and disease. Others were executed and thrown in mass graves, called killing fields.

RHEE: Was she able to tell you how your wife or your children died?

SETH: Oh yeah, yeah. She…I don’t want to describe. You know, it was so much painful. When I talk. She still cries when she talks with me by phone. She’s crying.

Out of their 25 member extended family, only Kompha and his sister-in-law are left. Kompha has dedicated his life to making sure that what happened during the genocide is not forgotten. He is now the Executive Director of the Cambodian Association of Illinois, the organization that houses the Killing Fields memorial.

SETH: Among the unluckiest, I’m the luckiest. That’s why we work hard to create this memorial, you know, to honor those who cannot make it. It’s the place where people come to heal the past, and also the place to honor those who cannot survive.

ambi: "Cambodian Dream" song played by Master Song San

The memorial is in the Association’s Heritage Museum, behind an exhibit on the renewal of Cambodian culture after the genocide. Its black granite walls are a solemn contrast to the colorful weavings and intricate wooden sculptures that fill the front of the museum.

Charles Daas is the Museum Director.

DAAS: What you see essentially are 80 glass panels that are back-lit. And each of these panels represents 25,000 people that perished during the Killing Fields period.

RHEE: And I see a white flower, and it says “We continue our journey with compassion, understanding and wisdom.”

DAAS: The phrase signifies the way in which the Cambodian people have approached having lived through a genocide. It’s also a window into their Buddhist beliefs which is this concept of unconditional love and compassion. That they move on from this tragic period in history and they continue to live and to thrive. The flower itself is a sacred flower in Cambodia. But it was also chosen to represent the life after this dark chapter in Cambodian history.

The museum is a gathering place for Cambodian-Americans searching for their heritage.

ambi: Kong Toch instrument

EAP: This instrument needs a lot of coordination. You have to use a lot of flexibility from one side to the next to the other side. You really need to have great body control with this.

On Sundays, young Cambodian-Americans like Kimsour Eap gather in the museum to practice traditional Khmer music. The music classes are one part of the Association’s mission to renew Cambodian culture, much of which was destroyed in the genocide.

Kimsour is practicing the Kong Toch. He sits on a pillow in the middle of the instrument – a circular series of small gongs. He comes to the music class to reconnect with his Cambodian culture.

EAP: It’s meaningful for all young people, like us, like me actually. To see what it’s like to be a part of Cambodian civilization, to be a Cambodian person period. To come here to see all of this museum, to see this display. To think about back in time what’s going on in Cambodia. It’s great.

Kimsour was born in Cambodia six years after the Khmer Rouge was ousted from power. And his family’s history during the genocide remains a mystery to him.

EAP: You know what, I don’t really know much about it. They don’t really want to talk about it, ‘cause it’s so much painful to even think about.

That reticence of Cambodians to discuss the genocide is one of the biggest obstacles the Association faces.

DAAS: Even though we have this museum, even though we have the memorial, I think that most people continue to be unaware of what really happened in Cambodia.

Again, Museum director Charles Daas.

DAAS: What is most disheartening for me is that genocide actually has a pattern. That this isn’t just something that happens. That one genocide occurs and people actually mimic or learn from that. And so I think one of the difficulties for me is that even though we have this wonderful facility and this beautiful memorial, which again while it’s a memorial to the Cambodian people, it’s a memorial to anyone who’s been victim to war to torture and to genocide. I think the hardest thing for me is that there are so many people who don’t know that this happened and how important it is for them to understand this.

Cambodians celebrated the 30th anniversary of the end of the Khmer Rouge regime last month. But as the Cambodian Association of Illinois will tell you, the genocide still is a dark shadow on the lives of Cambodian-Americans. It will take a long time before the wounds heal. And until then, the Cambodian community will keep renewing, and keep remembering.

Click here to listen to a tradional Khmer song performed by Master Song San at the Cambodian American Heritage Museum in Chicago.

Museum Exhibit Explores Hope For Cambodia’s Future After A Tragic Past

Sep 10, 2008
Asian Week

CHICAGO — The Cambodian American Heritage Museum has launched its latest show, "Cambodia Born Anew," a major exhibit on Cambodia's remarkable recovery following years of civil strife and genocide. The exhibit examines Cambodia's core economy, folk arts, education and Theravada Buddhism, the faith tradition of over 90 percent of Khmers, as well as performances of traditional Khmer music and dance.

The Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, opened in October 2004, is the first museum of its kind in the United States. The museum features Cambodian and community artists and Cambodian art; promotes genocide education and awareness; and preserves the memory of over two million Cambodian people lost during the Killing Fields through healing and arts.

Charles Daas, museum director, noted that, "'Cambodia Born Anew' is a snapshot of Cambodia today as its people wrestle with how to preserve ancient traditions in the wake of a new global economy."

The exhibit examined Cambodia's core economy, folk arts, education and Theravada Buddhism, the faith tradition of over 90 percent of Khmers, as well as performances of traditional Khmer music and dance.

The Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, opened in October 2004, is the first museum of its kind in the United States. The museum features Cambodian and community artists and Cambodian art; promotes genocide education and awareness; and preserves the memory of over two million Cambodian people lost during the Killing Fields through healing and arts.

Charles Daas, museum director, noted that, "'Cambodia Born Anew' is a snapshot of Cambodia today as its people wrestle with how to preserve ancient traditions in the wake of a new global economy."

Rite for killing fields

L.B.: Despite pain, survivors at 33rd anniversary vigil say remembrance is vital.

04/17/2008
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - It never goes away.

"It is in my eyes. It is in my head," Nuon Kanno says of his memories of life under the Khmer Rouge. "If I talk about Pol Pot, I cannot stop the tears."

For all the pain it dredges up, Nuon says events like Thursday's candlelight vigil at Wat Vipassanaram to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the Khmer Rouge ascendancy in Cambodia are vital.

Nuon says elders like he, who witnessed unspeakable horrors, owe it to their children and grandchildren to recall and retell the horrors and never forget.

For the fourth straight year, Cambodians in Long Beach held a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the genocide between 1975 and 1979 inflicted by the Khmer Rouge.

During the reign of the bloody Communist government, it is estimated that anywhere from 1.2 million to well over 2 million were slaughtered in the genocide that became known as the "Killing Fields." The most commonly cited number is 1.7 million estimated by Yale University in a U.S. State Department-sponsored study. Recent studies say it could be much higher.

With candles flickering in the cool night air outside the temple near Long Beach City College, about 120 survivors and their families gathered to honor the dead and rededicate themselves to the memories of lost families.

After prayers and sermons, survivors recalled their stories. Some wrote poems. Singer Plong Rithy, a well-known artist in Cambodia, sang a song she wrote and read a remembrance penned by Chantara Nop.

Paline Soth, an organizer of the event, also remembered and commemorated Dith Pran, a New York Times photographer who, before he died March 30, had become the face of the Cambodian genocide for many as the central figure in the 1984 Academy Award-winning film "The Killing Fields."

Earlier in the day, more than 200 templegoers attended prayers conducted by more than 20 monks from nearby temples and about 100 or stayed for lunch.

Like those who showed up in the evening, those who attended early said remembrance is vital.

"To the Cambodians who want to forget and say, 'The past is in the past,' I don't think we should ever forget," said Song Chhang, the former Minister of Information in Cambodia.

Chhang added that the current tribunals in Cambodia prosecuting former Khmer Rouge leaders are an important step in reconciling the past, although he says "the search for justice should not be stopped" with the end of the trials.

In the evening session, Chantara Hak, president of the nonprofit Killing Fields Memorial Center, talked about recent disputes that have divided the Cambodian community in Long Beach and urged Cambodians to come together.

No matter how their politics and social values may differ, there is one thing that binds all Cambodians, and it is April 17.