The color black

Survival (1975–1977)

Citizens became slaves of the 'Angkar'. In the rural forced labor camps, all color was washed out of life. Everyone wore black. Everyone ate the same watery rice porridge. Individuality was a death sentence.

For the father, this meant burying his knowledge and his past deep within himself. His soft hands, once a sign of education, had to harden to wield the spade and avoid being exposed as an 'intellectual'. It was a life of constant vigilance, marked by the hardest fieldwork, dam building, and the constant fear of the nightly gatherings, from which many never returned.