Cambodian Genocide Essay

Rahul Mone

Mrs. Marsden

ELA Honors I

4 February, 2016 The Cambodian Genocide The genocides of Cambodia and the Holocaust were two major genocides that have changed the history of the world forever. The Cambodian genocide started when the Khmer Rouge attempted to nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society of Cambodia (Quinn 63). These ideas came from the Chinese Communist agricultural model. Cambodia had a population of just over 7 million people and almost all of them were buddhists. The genocide started from a harsh climate of political and social turmoil (Krkljes). The Cambodian genocide had taken the lives of many innocent people just as the Holocaust had taken the lives of Elie Wiesel’s loved ones in the book Night right

Cambodians were killed in mass numbers once they had reached the labor camps. They were killed because they were inefficient workers, they did not listen, or even if they were ill. This greatly reduced the cambodian population (Ngor 214). In Night, once Elie reaches the camp, a doctor named Dr. Mengele examines the physical condition of the prisoners’ bodies. He determines whether or not the prisoners would be capable of doing labor or if they were sick. If Dr. Mengele believed that they were indeed sick or if he believed the person is to weak to perform labor, he would send them to the crematory to die (Wiesel

An estimated twenty five percent of the Cambodian population died because of the beliefs of the Khmer Rouge. Many dies because of harsh labor camp conditions and malnutrition (Krkljes). In Night, Elie describes the scene in the shed when they are taking a small break from marching. He says there are many dead corpses on the ground just laying there. “After trampling over many bodies and corpses, we succeeded in getting inside.” (Wiesel 89). That was just a small amount of dead bodies during a march. There were thousands of prisoner marches going on during the Holocaust. There were a thousand times as many bodies as seen