Timothy ChhimAge 54 / From CambodiaArrived here in 1976The Communist Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia's government from 1975 to 1979. Approximately 1.5 million Cambodians were killed during the reign of one of history's most brutal regimes. When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, we were told to leave the city immediately. I relocated to the countryside, but a month later, Communist soldiers showed up at my home and took me away. I was being taken to the killing fields, along with 70 other families who were either well-educated like me or were high-ranking officials under the old government. I was being held in a vacant Buddhist temple, waiting to be executed. A decision had to be made: be killed later or be killed right there on the spot. I knew I had a very slight chance to survive, but that was enough. So I ran. Guards started shooting as I ran toward some bushes nearby. I heard the bullets flying over my head, but I just kept running and running.
Photographed by William Coupon
"All I needed was just a tiny piece of food and a few drops of water so I could move a little bit closer to real freedom." --Timonthy Chhim
"All I needed was just a tiny piece of food and a few drops of water so I could move a little bit closer to real freedom." --Timonthy Chhim
I hid in the jungle that night. The next morning, I saw a family walking on the road, people like me who had escaped. I joined them. After a few weeks of traveling, we were captured and sent to a work camp. There I recruited 12 people to escape to Thailand with me. But I was captured, and the soldiers herded us together in the jungle to be executed. Again, I knew it was either die now or die later. The night before I made my decision, I dreamed that my father, who had died a few years earlier, was leading me to the refugee camp. That was my sign. I took a chance and joined the others in running away. Only three of us survived. I got to the refugee camp in Thailand four weeks later. I stayed there for over a year and met my wife, Neang. A priest who worked for Church World Service helped us get to America, and we landed in Jersey City. I went to college and in 1987 opened an Allstate insurance office. We came here with nothing and now have three wonderful kids and a successful business. It's the American Dream. I will always remember when I was starving and dehydrated in the middle of the Cambodian jungles. All I needed was just a tiny piece of food and a few drops of water so I could move a little bit closer to real freedom. It's a freedom that we as Americans should never take for granted.
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