April 17, 2025: 50 Years Since the Fall of Phnom Penh – Story of My Family’s Survival

This blog post is very different than my normal content, but I wanted to write something personal in honor of today. Trigger warning: genocide, trauma.

Fifty years ago today, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh and turned my family’s world upside down. For most people, this date is history. For my family, it’s sewn into the fabric of our memory—raw, personal, unforgettable.

My mom was just a little girl when it happened. She lost her childhood that day.

She was separated from her parents—my grandparents—and forced into a labor camp. The labor camps were split up by age group, and no one explained what was happening. She was forced to work long hours in the fields, barely given enough food to survive. She told me about how the soldiers only fed them spoonfuls of watery rice (more water than rice) and they were not allowed to make any fires. She had to eat raw meat and live grasshoppers in secret just to avoid starvation. To this day, my mom will not eat anything rare or raw (only well-done meat, no sushi or sashimi, no runny eggs) due to the trauma.

My mom witnessed horrors no child should ever see—people dying of starvation, others beaten, tortured, or killed for the smallest things, and a constant threat of punishment hanging over everyone. The Khmer Rouge tried to erase everything that made her a person: her name, her past, her family, her dreams. One of my core memories as a child was reading Guardians of Ga’hoole by Kathryn Lasky and telling my mom about the scene where the owlets were forced to say their names over and over in a process called “Moon Blinking” in order to forget their names and force them to respond to a number instead. My mom said she went through the same thing, but repeated other names instead of her own and she held on tight to her identity.

Today, on the 50th anniversary of that day, I think about how much my mom and my grandparents lost, among so many other survivors. My grandparents don’t speak about the atrocities of the war as often as my mom has, so I’m not sure about the extent of their stories but I’m sure they have their own unique experiences and methods of survival.

This day isn’t just about looking back. It’s about honoring the stories that weren’t told in any of my textbooks growing up — the stories passed down at my dinner table, the nightmares haunting my mom’s dreams, and the feelings etched into the hearts of survivors.

April 17, 1975 marked the beginning of a genocide. April 17, 2025 marks 50 years of remembrance, survival, and a legacy that lives on through the children and grandchildren of those who endured. Remembering where we came from is so important. Forgetting is not an option.

I have many poems and stories written about my mom and her survival of the Killing Fields. Working on a full biography, but in the meantime, I may write more blog posts about my family history. Let me know if you’re interested in reading more, and if there are any specific questions you have. Thank you so much for reading this personal post!