The Tears of My Soul

by Sokreaksa S. Himm, Jan Greenough

Sokreaksa S. Himm was a young member of a large family in Siemreap City, Cambodia. When the country fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 17, 1975, his family joined the exodus to the jungle villages.

As the young Khmer Rouge soldiers consolidated their grip, the deaths increased. Anyone who complained; anyone educated; anyone an informer disliked: all were "sent to study", killed. Teenage boys were brainwashed into amoral, vindictive thugs.

Finally the day dawned when the family were marched to a ready dug grave in a jungle clearing: one by one they fell as they were hacked down. Sokreaksa, gravely wounded, was covered by the bodies of his brothers and sisters. His executioners walked away, laughing.

That morning Sokreaska climbed from the mass grave. Hatred burned in his heart. Could he possibly forgive his family's killers?

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, History, Faith, Christian, Asia

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was given to me by the author himself back about two and a half years ago in 2010. I was able to meet Sokreaksa Himm in Siem Reap while co-hosting a Christian mission team from Canada. I didn't have time to read it then and it ended up in storage until recently I found it. Last night I started to read it and finished it up today.

This is a powerful account of one young man's life under the Khmer Rouge. He witnessed his family brutally executed and was left for dead himself in a mass grave lying on his dead father. He was not dead of course and he survived and became a Christian.

Sokreaksa also takes a good look at evil and suffering and the long term effects they have on people.

You have to read the book to get the full story and I do recommend reading it. Anyone who wants an idea of what life was like under the Khmer Rouge should read this book.

[Aya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book struck me to the heart. I can't put into words how shocking and tear-jerking this reading experience was to me. I salute Reaksa's courage and strengh, for he had to fight a lot throughout his journey toward peace : a freedom he could only attain by forgiving his family's executers.

[Yibbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the hardest books to read. It's brutal. The violence he experienced and witnessed is really hard to read about. He wrote it however after he came to Christ. He knows Hope. As he writes about what he went through he contrasts the hope, forgiveness, and love of Christ with the emptiness of the Budism he grew up under.
He doesn't hide any of his struggles. Salvation didn't make life easy for him. It didn't heal all of the pain of the past. He struggles with what would now be called PTSD. He tried so many things for peace. Then he turned to the Word. Christ comforted him when he couldn't find hope anywhere else.
This is a good book to read, but it's definately for adults.

[Victoria (TheMennomilistReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really an amazing account of what life was like for a man who grew up on the killing fields as a pre-teen. He suffered from PTSD after he survived (unknowingly to the killers) "being sent to school"/sent to be killed with his very large family, including his baby brother. He explains how God had always protected him in Cambodia and how if it were not for Jesus, he wouldn't be able to live in peace today. What a beautiful man of God he is. I read this book in a day because I was just glued to the pages.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So amazing. I sobbed through the last three chapters. Really great chapter on how to emotionally heal from trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Great discussion on forgiveness. It's so much easier to read about forgiveness from someone who has a lot to forgive.

A sort of "Christian" "First They Killed My Father".

[Thanyalak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know the writer of this book never want to have such those story in his life.
I can imagine he had very hard times of writing the words those brought him back to his deep sorrow...
I feel very thankful for he kindly writing all this to the book, so people will know how God can release, help, support, love, save, ...... in their life.

[Teena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and heart breaking story. I don't know how there was essentially a 2nd holocaust and I never learned about this in school, especially since the Cambodia story is so tired into the Vietnam War and we hear about that. I was horrified and feel we all should hear these stories to prevent the atrocities from within. He gives a very true picture of grief and struggling and the side effects it has on your life. I am nothing short of amazed that he was able to work through so much of it and use his experiences to help others heal as well.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but powerful book telling the real story of a survivor of the genocide in Cambodia.
It provides an insight into the destructiveness of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia's recent history, but it is also a journey into the life of a truly inspiring man, changed by Christ.
I had the pleasure to meet Sokreaksa just last month and was taken aback by how "normal" he is, despite having witnessed the violence of the Khmer Rouge and losing his whole family to it.

[Jess Pon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the first books I read about the Khmer Rouge. It was enlightening, heart breaking, and very important in starting my journey to learn more about Cambodia and its history by this mans account.

[Leigh Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!!! I never knew about this in Cambodia!! What evil took place. And oh how wonderful Jesus is and reaches down into the darkness to help heal us! This is an eye-opening book. I am looking forward to starting his second book.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Very touching!

[Sebastian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Christian propaganda instead of a brutally honest account of war times. Embellished, too.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to take a deep breath before writing about this one. I was reminded somewhat by Year of Impossible Goodbyes when reading this, in that it made me realize how little I know about even fairly recent major historical events in Asia. My friend brought this back for me when she visited the killing fields in Cambodia, and at the time, my knowledge of that was: 1) there were killing fields of some sort in Cambodia - maybe people were just herded out there and shot?, 2) the killing fields involved a dictator, Pol Pot, and his regime, the Khmer Rouge, and 3)also involved genocide. Other than that, no idea. So this book really taught me a lot about an... utterly horrible chapter in history.

Since I was reading some about Marxist theory--and then about the Communist takeover of North Korea--last semester, in a way, I couldn't help being... impressed, in a horrified sort of way, by the whole motivating idea behind the killing fields. The Khmer Rouge takes over Cambodia, countryside and peasants first, and then cities--ending with Phnom Penh--last, and aims to create a Communist society. Like in North Korea with The Year of Impossible Goodbyes, propaganda and incredible pressure to serve as spies (chlops) and turn others in for possible capitalistic/American associations are intense. In Cambodia, though, the country is divided into the 'new-liberated' and the 'old-liberated', with the 'old liberated' being the peasants and workers in the country/jungle who've been living under the Khmer Rouge for several years, while the 'new liberated' are those in the cities, generally bourgeoisie - teachers, professionals, doctors, bureaucrats, shopkeepers, etc. The 'new liberated'--including the author and his family--are lured out of their city under a false pretense; convinced that the Khmer Rouge's victory means that the nation will return to peace and stability after fighting, families leave the cities as the Khmer Rouge requests them to do, ostensibly because there may still be Americans hiding in the cities and the Khmer Rouge wants three days to 'clean' them out effectively. What the 'new-liberated' discover is that they are never intended to be allowed to go back to the cities, and are instead shipped off, at first to remote locations to see if they can prove if they are worth anything by 'surviving on their own', and then, when they've proved their relative uselessness vs. that of the old-liberated proletariats', they're sent to old-liberated villages to work. What I am/the book is not clear on here is if the Khmer Rouge's intent was to eventually kill all new-liberated/bourgeiosie, and thus destroy the class structure, if that was a goal that emerged over time, or if the new-liberated were simply meant to die out under the harsh conditions to which they weren't accustomed. In any case, it's a chilling, ruthlessly smart idea: to restart society from year zero by simply eliminating the upper class (and therefore class inequities), rather than having to get everyone on board propaganda-wise and work to eliminate old hierarchies. The ideal society that the Khmer Rouge seemed to envision was, for me, a strange blend of Communist and nationalistic ideas: a Communist society that glorified the country workers, they tried to kill/killed all of the intellectuals, former politicians, and doctors, relying on traditional Cambodian medicines instead of Western medicine, and tried to abolish religion and the traditional family structure (forcing people--like Reaksa's father--to destroy the Buddhist temples, and performing group marriages of men and women once they realized that most people had stopped marrying/reproducing, allowing the couples to spend a few nights together, and then separating them again into men and women's work camps.) It was also amazing to me the extent to which the Khmer Rouge--and most of the old-liberated--could treat the new-liberated as utterly useless and expendable ("if we keep you, we gain nothing, and if we kill you, we lose nothing"). That kind of dramatic reversal of the status quo is, again, pretty impressive, even though it's also pretty terrifying from an overall human perspective.

For Reaksa's family, this new living arrangement meant that his family had to adjust to a much harsher way of life (their father was a teacher before), with all of them working and sometimes at the point of starvation, while also living in constant fear of chlops, or spies, who would report any form of complaining against conditions or any action that could even be construed as a form of rebellion to the Khmer Rouge, who would severely beat if not 'send to school' (execute) any offenders. Reaksa's family was still mostly able to live together since they were resettled into a different village and lived in a hut together though they had to go into different work details during the day, so it wasn't necessarily the 'concentration camp-like' set-up that I had envisioned, but in a way, the society that they lived in was just as--if not even more--imprisoning. The chlops (especially teenage boys who were persuaded of the rightness of the Khmer Rouge's cause, who would be especially cruel and ruthless) would patrol the village constantly, listening in at people's huts for any whisper of a complaint, and would kill people for speaking out, refusing to watch, or even showing any emotion during a family member's punishment, no matter how arbitrary and unjust it was, since even the slightest form of resistance or protest was to become khmang, or enemy of the Khmer Rouge. When Reaksa's family is taken out of their village one day to be executed, the method is particularly brutal: they wait while the chlops finish digging the mass grave for them, and then one by one, they kneel down before the mass grave while a chlop hacks at them from behind with a hoe or an axe, with the rest (family members included) waiting and watching. It seemed from Reaksa's description that most people were still alive when they fell into the mass grave (himself included, obviously), and at that point, the chlops would jump in hacking and finish everyone off, with family members bodies on top of family members'. It sounds like an absolutely horrible way to die, and the chlops' attitudes--laughing before the killing at the family members' fear and tearful goodbyes, torturing some of the women--are revoltingly inhuman. Reaksa talks about new-liberated families/people disappearing from his village all the time, with no one able to comment on it for fear of the chlops. It's amazing/horrifying to think that 2 million Cambodians died in ways like this.

What seriously impressed me (in a good way this time) was, first of all, how incredibly moral and upstanding Reaksa and his family were able to be during the whole ordeal. They made a pact to live and die together as a family no matter what, and were able to stick to their loyalty to one another, constantly working and looking out for the good of the family. Even at the brink of starvation, the young kids in the family firmly believed that they should not steal, and Reaksa's younger brother refuses to make a false confession that he did so, despite being beaten within inches of his life. They just seemed, throughout, to be such a loving family with an incredibly strong code of ethics. Second, Reaksa's reception when he does return to the village after he survives the chlops' massacre of his family is so emotionally unexpected--that the old-liberated village people come out to meet him and hug him and greet him despite abusing him and mistreating him before. Especially that Mov would move to keep Reaksa alive in the village's meeting afterward and offer to adopt him though he doesn't know him at all--and then risk his life afterwards by not killing Reaksa when ordered to and sneaking supplies to him in the jungle--is a stunning example of kindness and unselfishness. Mov's reaction to the inner prompting that he felt to save Reaksa, along with Reaksa's mysterious visitor 6 months earlier who tells him that his family will be killed and he'll survive, and the snake that doesn't kill Reaksa after his family is slaughtered (slithering away instead after Reaksa asks him to), are for me all really incredible miracles. I can't really describe them in another way, and it was interesting to me that Reaksa doesn't really try to, either, not even in a religious sense (although perhaps he was trying not to impose a Christian understanding on events that he experienced while still at least somewhat a Buddhist). These sorts of incredible happenings really made Reaksa's story amazing for me just from the sheer amount of things that happened to keep him alive, which for me seem evidence of God's intervention.

I liked that Reaksa told his story in a more holistic way, not simply ending it after the Khmer Rouge fell, but tracing his emotional, psychological, and spiritual recovery as well. Dealing with all of the pain, sadness, trauma, and rage from his experiences is an overwhelming task, and he doesn't brush over the inept responses that he gets from some of his classmates and even pastors, but focuses on the idea that those who have experienced great pain and loss know best how to deal with others who are enduring it, and traces his own path to healing and forgiveness, which he largely forged himself (in the sense that he never seems to have gone to a counselor/psychologist). I don't know if I'd describe this process as 'amazing' as the book preview does - the process seems very much a trial-and-error, hard-fought emotional battle taking years and years rather than some innovative self-help track that he develops, and it is both obvious and nice, in a way, that Reaksa describes himself as still recovering from all that he has endured, rather than somehow having 'arrived' at a place where everything is now somehow okay. That Reaksa goes through it at all - that he deals with his incredible grief and his feelings of helpless rage - is the truly astounding part for me, and is a powerful account of God's patience in revealing things to us one at a time, and God's healing from truly traumatic events.

The book is very simply written - events are stated as they occur without much flourish (the most well-developed parts are the two most tragic, probably because of the way in which they are so indelibly etched in his psyche), and Reaksa doesn't seem to aim to be either poetic or, towards the end, non-didactic. This teacherly tone towards the end slowed things down for me considerably even though I was interested in it and hoping for his recovery, but moments here and there in the last few chapters also were those that touched me the most emotionally. I don't know if I would read this again, but I'm grateful to know more about Cambodia and what happened there, and about Reaksa's progress in healing and in helping others to do the same.

[Rolypolyoly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very intense, poignant read. I've always read about the Khmer genocide as a whole, never as a personal account. This book offers a glimpse into what millions of people lived through during the Khmer Rouge.

The pain and trauma this man has endured is unrivaled but his testimony of hope, healing and forgiveness is greater still. And I guess that is the running theme throughout this book. It challenged me in so many ways, primarily, if someone could forgive his perpetrators in the face of unimaginable loss, what excuse do I have?

On a side note, I enjoyed the style of writing employed. I like how the author didn't go too much into theology despite his extensive knowledge of it. Very well written, clear and concise. Powerful, brave and convicting.

[Alix St Amant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography of someone who survived the “killing fields” of Cambodia as a boy. It goes into great detail everything he and his family went through, and then into him eventually surviving an execution and making it out of the country and into safety. He gives his salvation testimony, and goes over his mental health journey through severe ptsd. I read it aloud to the kids and there were a few times I had to skip a paragraph or two because the suffering was too violent and intense to read out loud.

[Tony Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is deeply inspiring. Reaksa takes us through a challenging and inspiring story of love, evil, trauma and forgiveness.

I had heard about this book through reading Brent Hansen's book Unoffendable, so I kinda knew what I was getting into. Regardless, I found it difficult emotionally to read through the first half of the book knowing what was coming. But I stuck with it.

Really glad I read this wonderful story of grace and forgiveness.

[Sydney Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heart-breaking true story. Why this history isn’t taught in school I don’t know. But learning the brutal history and seeing how Reaksa was able to heal by Gods power is immensely impactful. It made me think about forgiveness, anger, and pain in totally new ways.

[Heather Gahres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving story from a survivor of the killing fields in Cambodia. Gripping tail similar to Night by Elie Wiesel.

[Josefine Nybacka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hade ingen aning om Kambodjas mörka historia. Tuff berättelse. Läste boken på svenska.

[Kathy Regehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of trauma and tragedy that leads a young man on a journey through grief, PTSD, and finally forgiveness because of the love and forgiveness he found in Jesus.

[William Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is amazing how God can bring glory and honor to himself and the healing he brings from great tragedy.

[Jazzenith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bittersweet account of one young man, Sokreaksa's life during the the Khmer Rouge's disastrous reign of Cambodia in the 70s. This is heart aching read which comes full circle during its closing chapters in which we can see there is great hope for those who endure and witness great suffering in their lives. I think all those who read this book that cannot relate to such pain and suffering will be more than thankful for not going through similar events as Sokreaksa's. It amazes of how evil can really manifest itself in the hearts and minds of men that such atrocities can occur, and this book describes this in some detail from the perspective of a boy. This is also a good read in terms of seeing how he matured and grew with this hurt and suffering compounding his life. It was only by the love and grace of God that Sokreaksa could overcome his demons and his many inflictions. This is a great testimony of the power of Christ in one's life, and the joy that is to follow from coming to Him and what He can do for a person. Really good and insightful read of hope.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has fairly high reviews, and I feel a little bad about only giving it two stars. I didn't really enjoy the writing, but the story itself was moving. How could anyone read the story of a survivor of something so horrible and not be moved? This person endured incredible hardship and overcame, and that is courageous and inspirational. I am glad that so many other people have read and appreciated this story. It is so vital to have people brave enough to tell the truths about events like this, in hopes that people will sit up and take notice and prevent such things from continuing to occur.

[Kelly Hargreaves-cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what 'preachy' meant when I read reviews of this book. Towards the end it becomes very Christian (or preachy as others have said) however it's a truly horrifying account and if it have been me who lived through the ordeal I would need more than Jesus Christ to save me. A very honest account of finding forgiveness and not allowing revenge to ruin your soul. I'm not overly religious and it didn't really phase me. Absolutely shocking, riveting book that I read in less than 2 hours. Not Dickensian in prose but truly humbling.

[Cielito Merriam · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, not the best writing and it gets preachy for about 2 chapters towards the end, BUT the man has a powerful story to tell and it's definitely worth listening. If you get stuck at the preachy part, just skip it and go straight to the last chapter. It's a quick read about a man coming to terms with horrific events that he survived as a young boy.

[Stephen Wong]

Great book and insightful on the horrors of the Cambodian Killing Fields. While this book shows the depravity of human nature, it also lights the way to show a greater power at work. I highly recommend this book to those who which to know some history behind Cambodia as well as the first hand experience of one who has survived this tragedy.

[Michelle Leoni · Rating 5 out of 5]

boy who survives the Cambodian killing fields. Not a light, summer vacation read.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just don't think I could forgive...

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite Cambodia memoir. Very raw, not particularly well edited, but very authentic, especially about the long long healing process in a way that I have not heard others articulate.

[Mandy Downie · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing book.