Michael Ferraro

I picked up this book in the Siem Reap Airport after visiting Cambodia in 2017. The book is a true story about Haing Hgor experience while surviving the Killing Fields ruled by the Khamer Rouge. The book is a biography and a documentary. It is graphic when it describes how the Khamer Rouge tortured the Cambodians that live in the work camps. It gave me a fear of anything resembling communism or socialism. I am confident that anyone who experienced a communist take-over would be against anything resembling socialistic or communistic society. Rights were stripped away, professionals were tortured to death. There was a deep resentment of anyone who was educated or had a successful career. This was stripped away and they were forced to leave they communities and literally march down the road out to the work camps or they were shot on the spot. Then they were given a minimal amount of food to survive and most eventually died in the camps of malnutrition. Haing Hgor exscaped, as a refugee through Thailand, after the Vietnamese came in and fought the Khamer Rouge.