The first Cambodian genocide memorial in the U.S. was opened to the public yesterday at the opening of the Cambodian American Heritage Museum in Chicago. The “Killing Fields” memorial remembers those killed in the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge, whose communist leader Pol Pot sought to take a modernizing country and forcibly return it to a pre-industrial state. Between 1.7 and 3 million Cambodians died in the genocide from 1975 - 1979.
The memorial consists of 80 glass columns of staggered heights in four rows that form a Wall of Remembrance. Each column represents 25,000 lives, and the front row of will be etched with the names of Illinois Cambodians’ relatives who were killed during the genocide. The memorial and museum are the work of the Cambodian Association of Illinois, which is holding a public open house for their renovated community center and new museum and memorial Saturday, October 9 starting at 4 PM (for info Phone: (773) 878-7090 ext. 203 or Email: CAI@cambodian-association.org). Chicago is home to about 5,000 Cambodians of the 7,000 that live in Illinois.
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