Cambodia's Killing Feilds

As soon as The Khmer Rouge came to power, with the fall of Phnom Penh at the time, the regime arrested and then executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, including professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese (except for those already prominent among the Khmer Rouge themselves), ethnic Chams (Muslim Cambodians), Cambodian Christians (most of whom were Roman Catholic, along with its Priesthood) and the Buddhist monkhood were the demographic targets of persecution. As a result, Pol Pot is sometimes described as "the Hitler of Cambodia" and "a genocidal tyrant." Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era."

According to Michael Vickery, 750,000 people in Cambodia in a population of about 7 million died due to disease, overwork, and political repression. However, many scholars disregard his claims because the number of victims of execution found in the mass graves is higher than his estimate for deaths from all causes during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and the civil war combined. The most widely accepted estimate, from scholar Ben Kiernan, is that about 1.7 million people were killed. It is described by the Yale University Cambodian Genocide Program as, "one of the worst human tragedies of the last century." Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After 5 years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that, "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,386,734 victims of execution." Execution is believed to have accounted for about 30-50% of the death toll. This would indicate 2.5 to 3 million deaths, but normal mortality over this period would have accounted for about 500,000 deaths—subtracting this from the total sum, we arrive at Etcheson's range for the number of "excess" deaths attributable to the Khmer Rouge regime.[9] A UN investigation reported 2-3 million dead, while UNICEF estimated 3 million had been killed.[10] Even the Khmer Rouge acknowledged that 2 million had been killed—though they attributed those deaths to a subsequent Vietnamese invasion. By late 1979, UN and Red Cross officials were warning that another 2.25 million Cambodians faced death by starvation due to “the near destruction of Cambodian society under the regime of ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot,” who were saved by American and international aid after the Vietnamese invasion.

Although Pol Pot is credited with killing 1/4 of the Cambodian population, there is debate as to whether or not this constitutes genocide under international law. Moreover, there is a separate debate as to whether or not the persecution of minorities by the Khmer Rouge constituted genocide.

Cambodia's ethnic minorities constituted 15 percent of the population in pre-Khmer Rouge era. Of the 400,000 Vietnamese who lived in Cambodia before 1975, some 150-300,000 were expelled by the previous Lon Nol regime. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge came to power, there remained about 100-250,000 Vietnamese in the country. Almost all of them were repatriated by December 1975. Some argue that the Khmer Rouge had no intent to cause serious mental and physical harm to the Vietnamese during the sun repatriation process.

The Chinese community (about 425,000 people in 1975) was reduced to 200,000 during the next four years. In the Khmer Rouge's Standing Committee, four members were of Chinese ancestry, two Vietnamese, and two Khmers. Some observers argue that this mixed composition makes it difficult to argue that there was an intent to kill off minorities. R.J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, argues that there was a clear genocidal intent:

Not only did the Khmer Rouge run amok massacring their people, but also everywhere the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy the very heart of peasant life. Hinayana Buddhism had been a state religion, and the priesthood of monks with their saffron robes was a central part of Cambodian culture. Some 90 percent of Cambodians believed in some form of Buddhism. Many received a rudimentary schooling from the monks, and many young people became monks for part of their lives. The Khmer Rouge could not allow so powerful an institution to stand and therefore set out with vigor to destroy it. They exterminated all leading monks and either murdered or defrocked the lesser ones. One estimate is that out of 40,000 to 60,000 monks only 800 to 1,000 survived to carry on their religion. We do know that of 2,680 monks in eight monasteries, merely seventy were alive in 1979.

As for the Buddhist temples that populated the landscape of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge destroyed 95 percent of them, and turned the few remaining into warehouses or allocated them for some other degrading use. Amazingly, in the very short span of a year or so, the small gang of Khmer Rouge wiped out the center of Cambodian culture, its spiritual incarnation, its institutions. This was an act of genocide within the larger Cambodian democide, and it was not the only one. In most if not all the country, simply being of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, or Lao ancestry meant death. As part of a planned genocide campaign, the Khmer Rouge sought out and killed other minorities, such as the Moslem Cham. In the district of Kompong Xiem, for example, they demolished five Cham hamlets and reportedly massacred 20,000 that lived there; in the district of Koong Neas only four Cham apparently survived out of some 20,000.

The cadre threw the Cham Grand Mufti, their spiritual leader, into boiling water and then hit him on the head with an iron bar. They beat another leader, the First Mufti, to death, tortured and disemboweled the Second Mufti, and murdered by starvation in prison the Chairman of the Islamic Association of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Overall, the Khmer Rouge annihilated nearly half--about 125,000--of all the Cambodian Cham. As to the other minorities, the Khmer Rouge also slaughtered about 200,000 ethnic Chinese, almost half of those in Cambodia--a calamity for ethnic Chinese in this part of the world unequaled in modern times--additionally, they murdered 3,000 Protestants and 5,000 Catholics; around 150,000 ethnic Vietnamese (over half); and 12,000 ethnic Thai out of 20,000. One Cambodian peasant, Heng Chan, whose wife was of Vietnamese descent, lost not only his wife, but also five sons, three daughters, three grandchildren, and sixteen of his wife's relatives. In this genocide, the Khmer Rouge probably murdered 541,000 Chinese, Chams, Vietnamese, and other minorities.

Historical Art Vol. 1

A poet once wrote: “Art is not a study of positive reality,it is the seeking for ideal truth".

The Goddess Durga as Slayer of the Buffalo-Demon Mahisha (Mahishasuramardini), 14th–15th century Nepal


Bowl with Pair of Rabbits, mid-9th–12th century Mimbres peoples


Byzantine Tile, ca. 500 AD


Saint Alexander, ca. 1420


The Triumph of Fame, ca. 1502–4 - Flemish


Tapestry Roundel, first half of the 14th century
Iraq or Iran




LIVE, LEARN AND EXPLORE - Enter the History Temple

General Sherman's March to the Sea

"Sherman's March to the Sea" is the name given by historians to describe the Savannah Campaign conducted across Georgia during November-December 1864 by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

The campaign began with Sherman's troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. The military campaign had inflicted significant damage, particularly to industry and infrastructure and civilian property, keeping in step with Gen. Sherman's doctrine of total war. One military historian wrote that Sherman "defied military principles by operating deep within enemy territory and without lines of supply or communication. He destroyed much of the South's potential and psychology to wage war."



Gen. Sherman and U.S. Army commander, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic and psychological capacity for warfare were decisively broken. Sherman therefore applied the principles of scorched earth.

He ordered his troops to burn crops, kill livestock, consume supplies, and destroy civilian infrastructure along their path. This policy is often considered a component strategy of total war.

For thirty-six days that army moved through Georgia, with very little opposition, pillaging the countryside. It was a sort of military promenade, requiring very little military skill in the performance, and as little personal prowess, as well trained union troops were deployed against defenseless citizens. It was grand in conception, and easily executed.



Gen. Sherman's forces were composed of four army corps, the right wing commanded by Gen. O. O. Howard, and the left wing by Gen. H. W. Slocum. Howard's right was composed of the corps of Generals Osterhaus and Blair, and the left of the corps of Gen. J. C. Davis and A. S. Williams. General Kilpatrick commanded the cavalry, consisting of one division.

Many deeds that tested the prowess and daring of the soldiers on both sides on the march. Kilpatrick's first dash across the Flint River and against General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry, and then towards Macon, burning a train of cars and tearing up the railway, gave the Confederates a suspicion of Sherman's intentions. There was widespread consternation in Georgia and South Carolina, for the invader's destination was uncertain.

Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard was sent from the Appomattox to the Savannah to confront the Yankee army. He sent before him a manifesto in which he said, "Destroy all the roads in Sherman's front, flank, and rear," and, "be trustful in Providence." Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia., in the Confederate Congress at Richmond wrote to the people of his State: " Every citizen with his gun and every negro with his spade and axe can do the work of a soldier. You can destroy the enemy by retarding his march. Be firm!" The representatives of Georgia in the Confederate Congress called upon their people to fly to arms.

Sherman's entire force numbered 60,000 infantry and artillery and 5,500 cavalry. On Nov. 11 Sherman cut the telegraph wires that connected Atlanta with Washington, and his army became an isolated column in the heart of an enemy's country. It began its march for the sea on the morning of the 14th, when the entire city of Atlanta—excepting its courthouse, churches, and dwellings—was committed to the flames.



On December 9th the Federal army reached the neighborhood of Savannah. The city was defended by confederate General Hardee with 10,000 men, and was well protected by forts and by the rice swamps which had been flooded. Though cannonading was kept up for a number of days between attackers and defenders, the city was not hurt. After cooperation had been established between Sherman and the Federal gunboats on the coast and in the mouths of the rivers, Hardee saw that it would be impossible to hold Savannah, and in order to save his army he withdrew across the Savannah River into South Carolina, on December 21st.

On the following day Sherman entered Savannah and sent this telegram to President Lincoln: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."

No other campaign in the entire war has contributed more to keeping alive sectional feeling than Sherman's march through Georgia and South Carolina. The march began in November, after the crops had been gathered. The "bummers" found the barns bursting with grain, fodder, and peas, the outhouses full of cotton, the yards crowded with hogs, chickens, and turkeys.

The soldiers in the Southern armies were starving, not because there was no food, but because the rail roads had been destroyed and it was impossible to send supplies to the front. Sherman was not content simply to use what food and supplies he needed, but boasted that he would "smash things to the sea" and make Georgia howl. His men entered dwellings, taking everything of value that could be moved, such as silver plate and jewelry; and killed and left dead in the pens thousands of hogs, sheep and poultry. Many dwellings were burned without any justification.



Sherman in his own Memoirs testifies to the conduct of his men, estimating that he had destroyed $80,000,000 worth of property of which he could make no use. This he describes as "simple waste and destruction." One of the most serious aspects of his work was the destruction of the railroads; the Central from Macon to Savannah, for instance, was almost totally ruined.

The History of French Indo-China

For over two-thousand years the people of Vietnam have fought off invading armies from ancient Chinese rulers to present-day super powers all the while struggling to maintain their indigenous identity and culture.

One such super power was France. And from 17th century with the establishment of Jesuit missions to 1954 and the battle of Dien Bien Phu the French had influence on Indochina.

French Indochina was formed in October 1887 from the territories of Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina, which all together form modern-day Vietnam, and the Kingdom of Cambodia- Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War.

European involvement in Viet Nam was confined to trade during the 18th century, though in 1787 Pigneau de Béhaine, a French Catholic priest, petitioned the French government and organized French military volunteers to aid Nguyễn Ánh in retaking lands lost to the Tây Sơn. His troops fought in the service of France until 1802.



France was heavily involved in Vietnam in the 19th century; protecting the work of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in the country was often presented as a justification. As time went on the Nguyễn Dynasty increasingly saw Catholic missionaries as a threat to their way of life.

Territorial conflict in the Indochinese peninsula led to the Franco-Siamese War of 1893. In 1893 the French authorities in Indochina used border disputes, followed by the Paknam naval incident, to provoke a crisis. Soon after, French gunboats appeared at Bangkok, and demanded the cession of Lao territories east of the Mekong and got it.

The French continued to pressure Siam and in 1906–1907 they manufactured another crisis. This time Siam had to concede French control of territory on the west bank of the Mekong opposite Luang Prabang and around Champasak in southern Laos, as well as western Cambodia. France also occupied the western part of Chantaburi.

February 10, 1930 marked an uprising by Vietnamese soldiers in the French colonial army's Yen Bai garrison. The "Yên Bái mutiny" was sponsored by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (VNQDD). VNQDD for the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The attack was the largest disturbance against the colonisation of Vietnam since Phan Dinh Phung and the "Can Vuong monarchist movement" of the late 19th century. The aim of the revolt was to inspire a wider uprising among the general populace in an attempt to overthrow the colonial authority.

The VNQDD had previously attempted to engage in clandestine activities aimed to undermine French rule, but increasing French scrutiny on their activities led to their leadership group taking the risk of staging a large scale military attack in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.

During the Second World War Thailand took the opportunity of French weaknesses to reclaim previously lost territories, resulting in the French-Thai War between October 1940 and 9 May 1941.

The Thai forces generally did well on the ground, but Thai objectives in the war were limited. In January, Vichy French naval forces decisively defeated Thai naval forces in the Battle of Koh Chang. The war ended in May at the instigation of the Japanese, with the French agreeing to minor territorial gains for Thailand.

French forces were not in a strong enough position to immediately reassert their authority in their former colony, French Indochina, after the Japanese invaders withdrew at the end of World War II.

In the north, the Vietminh, a political party led by Ho Chi Minh, proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. France agreed to recognize Vietnam as a free state within the French Union, but negotiations dragged on.

In December 1946, Vietminh forces attacked French garrisons, and during the ensuing years guerrilla activity increased in the countryside. In 1949, a Vietnamese provisional government, headed by Emperor Bao Dai, was established, which was recognized by France and, in 1950, by the United States.

The communist-dominated Vietminh rejected any remnant of French authority and consequently attacked French outposts along Vietnam's border with China, from whom they received substantial military aid. In 1951, the Vietminh created a common front with communist groups in Laos and Cambodia, also known as Kampuchea, and became more and more aggressive.

They were led by General Vo Nguyen Giap, who launched an attack on March 13, 1954, against the strategic French stronghold at Dien Bien Phu in northwestern Vietnam. Giap's siege lasted 56 days; his Vietminh troops continually attacked with artillery and mortar fire until the French defenders, short of ammunition, surrendered on May 7, 1954.



On April 27, 1954, the Geneva Conference produced the Geneva Agreements supporting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina, granting it independence from France, declaring the cessation of hostilities and foreign involvement in internal Indochina affairs.

Anne Frank: A voice from the past.

Anne Frank once wrote in her diary that -

"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."

But in the end it was by betrayal that lead to the end of her young and promising life.

The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany. By the beginning of 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in some concealed rooms in the building where Anne's father worked. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot Frank, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died of typhus in March 1945.

Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that Anne's diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl. It has since been translated into many languages. The blank diary, which was given to Anne on her thirteenth birthday, chronicles her life from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.

For her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942, Anne Frank received a book she had shown her father in a shop window a few days earlier. Although it was an autograph book, bound with red-and-white checkered cloth and with a small lock on the front, Frank decided she would use it as a diary, and began writing in it almost immediately. While many of her early entries relate the mundane aspects of her life, she also discusses some of the changes that had taken place in the Netherlands since the German occupation. In her entry dated 20 June 1942, she lists many of the restrictions that had been placed upon the lives of the Dutch Jewish population, and also notes her sorrow at the death of her grandmother earlier in the year. Frank dreamed about becoming an actress. She loved watching movies, but the Dutch Jews were forbidden access to movie theaters from 8 January 1941 onwards.

On the morning of 4 August 1944, following a tip from an informer who was never identified, the Achterhuis was stormed by a group of German uniformed police (Grüne Polizei) led by SS-Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst.[34] The Franks, van Pelses, and Pfeffer were taken to RSHA headquarters, where they were interrogated and held overnight. On 5 August they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to the Westerbork transit camp, through which by that time more than 100,000 Jews, mostly Dutch and German, had passed. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.

Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and jailed at the penal camp for enemies of the regime at Amersfoort. Kleiman was released after seven weeks, but Kugler was held in various work camps until the war's end.[36] Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl were questioned and threatened by the Security Police but were not detained. They returned to the Achterhuis the following day, and found Anne's papers strewn on the floor. They collected them, as well as several family photograph albums, and Gies resolved to return them to Anne after the war. On 7 August 1944, Gies attempted to facilitate the release of the prisoners by confronting Silberbauer and offering him money to intervene, but he refused.


On 3 September 1944, the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and arrived after a three-day journey. On the same train was Bloeme Evers-Emden, an Amsterdam native who had befriended Margot and Anne in the Jewish Lyceum in 1941.In the chaos that marked the unloading of the trains, the men were forcibly separated from the women and children, and Otto Frank was wrenched from his family. Of the 1,019 passengers, 549—including all children younger than 15—were sent directly to the gas chambers. Frank had turned 15 three months earlier and was one of the youngest people to be spared from her transport. She was soon made aware that most people were gassed upon arrival, and never learned that the entire group from the Achterhuis had survived this selection. She reasoned that her father, in his mid-fifties and not particularly robust, had been killed immediately after they were separated.

After the arrest of Anne Frank and her family, her father, Otto Frank was sent to theAuschwitz concentration camp where he languished until being liberated by Russian troops in early January 1945.. Among his few possession was the diary of his beloved daughter- Anne Frank.

(Prisoners of Auschwitz greeting liberators)
In her writing, Frank examined her relationships with the members of her family, and the strong differences in each of their personalities. She considered herself to be closest emotionally to her father, who later commented, "I got on better with Anne than with Margot, who was more attached to her mother. The reason for that may have been that Margot rarely showed her feelings and didn't need as much support because she didn't suffer from mood swings as much as Anne did."[27] The Frank sisters formed a closer relationship than had existed before they went into hiding, although Anne sometimes expressed jealousy towards Margot, particularly when members of the household criticised Anne for lacking Margot's gentle and placid nature. As Anne began to mature, the sisters were able to confide in each other. In her entry of 12 January 1944, Frank wrote, "Margot's much nicer ... She's not nearly so catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little baby who doesn't count."

Anne Frank’s diary is posthumously published on June 25, 1947, when her father, Otto Frank, printed 1,500 copies in Dutch. It's now printed in many languages and read by people all over the world. And after all these years the diary is still as compelling to read as when it was first printed.



All may not be right in the world but life is what you make it and in these times of despair and uncertainty, History Temple would like to leave you all with just another quote by Anne Frank.

... "I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains"