A Man of Generations-My Grand-Father-in-law was taken away and killed- Part 9

My grand-father, a Vietnamese, married to my grand-mother in the 60’s in the reign of the former Kingdom of Cambodia. They got four children, the elder son, elder daughter, the third daughter and the youngest son. They lived in Sithor Lech Village, Sithor Commune, where I lived during the Khmer Rouge regime. During the fratricide war between Lon Nol regime and Khmer Rouge, his big house was destroyed by the bombs dropped by the T-28​ warplane.

His elder son was sent to Khmer Rouge army and became high officer, working far away from the family. They were considered base people, people who never fled the village to live in the city zone controlled by Lon Nol regime. The new people were people who were evacuated from cities and towns to live in the countryside.

When the Khmer Rouge usurped power in 1975, he became chief of section or group who supervised the new people (the people who were evacuated to this village). He was in charge of supplying vegetables to the village kitchen. I was one of his group members. I worked with him but he never showed his relationship with me in the public. He did toward me as the others.

 We grew vegetables, we produced vegetables and responsible for the supply of vegetables for the village kitchen. We were 7 people in the group. So we needed to work very hard in order to regularly supply the kitchen. We grew all kinds of vegetables, such as cucumbers, string-beans, potatoes, water-melons, maize…. If it was not enough​ for the kitchen, our group went out with bicycles to the lakes far away from the village to pick up aquatic plants.

As far as I knew, my grand-father-in-law was never absent from his work. He worked as if to show everyone his high commitment. He was old either, still strong in spirit.

One morning when I walked past his house, I heard the sound of sobbing, then I walked in. My auntie while crying told me that they took her father away last midnight. They cried loudly. They seemed not to fear anybody. I heard my grand-mother said: “My son is in the army, I sent him in, to defend the country, our family has sacrificed a lot, why they kill my husband! ” I did not wait to hear until long, I was afraid of it, but continued my way to the field. The new group leader was nominated. He told us just to work, not to speak about the killing.

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Take away means to kill away from the village. They took him away after my father-in-law after the last 2 months. This was the glimpse of killing of Vietnamese people in Cambodia.