To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge"In one of the most powerful memoirs of persecution ever written, Denise Affonco recounts how her comfortable life in Phnom Penh was torn apart when the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in April 1975. As a French citizen, Denise Affonco was offered a choice: she could either flee to France with her children or they could all stay together in Cambodia with her husband, Seng, who did not have a French passport. Seng was Chinese and a convinced communist; he believed that the Khmer Rouge would bring an end to five years of civil war. Denise decided the family should stay together. But the Khmer Rouge did not bring peace: Denise and her family, along with millions of their fellow citizens, were deported to a living hell in the countryside where, for almost four years, they endured hard labour, famine, sickness and death." "What gives this book its freshness is that much of it was written in the months after Denise Affonco's liberation in 1979. Shortly afterwards, Denise left for France to rebuild her life with her surviving son and the carbon copy manuscript was all but forgotten. It was only when, some 25 years later, she met a European academic who told her that the Khmer Rouge did "nothing but good" for Cambodia that she realised it was time to end her silence."--BOOK JACKET. |
Contents
Section 1 | 8 |
Section 2 | 14 |
Section 3 | 28 |
Section 4 | 46 |
Section 5 | 53 |
Section 6 | 62 |
Section 7 | 74 |
Section 8 | 91 |
Section 9 | 104 |
Section 10 | 121 |
Section 11 | 139 |
Section 12 | 155 |
Section 13 | 165 |
Other editions - View all
To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Denise Affonço No preview available - 2008 |
To the End of Hell: One Woman's Struggle to Survive Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Denise Affonço No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
Angkar arrive basket bô-dôi bowl Cambodian camp centimetres Chinese clothes consul cook corn daughter death diarrhoea dried dykes empty everything feel fish four France French Embassy gather girl give grilled happy harvest head hell Ho Chi Minh hunger husband Jean-Jacques Jeannie Khmer Rouge kilometres kilos later leave live Lon Nol look Loti manage manioc meal mess tin metres Minh City Ministry morning neighbour never night once paddy fields pagoda palm sugar Phnom Leap Phnom Penh pick plants Pol Pot Pouk prahok precious refugees regime rice ration rice soup riels sahakâr salt sampots sangkat schlops Seng sick Siem Reap sister-in-law Svay sweet potatoes tell there's Thiên things threshing tisane torture town Vietnam Vietnamese village chief waiting women worry yautheas yautheasyautheasyautheas