When the Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Daughter's Search for Her Father in the Killing Fields of Cambodia

by Robert Carmichael

'Like Auschwitz, like Stalin's purges, the mass murders of the Khmer Rouge are one of those extraordinary events that make us wonder about the human capacity for evil. Through a profoundly moving tale that weaves together the connected stories of a victim, his surviving family, and members of the regime, Robert Carmichael brings us into the heart of the darkness that took over Cambodia, bringing it alive in the way no mere statistics can. I've not seen a comparable book about these horrors.'
Adam Hochschild, award-winning author of King Leopold's Ghost

'What does it mean to say two million people lost their lives during the years of Khmer Rouge rule? The true answer can only be told in microcosm, as Robert Carmichael has done in this intimate and heartbreaking story of the disappearance of one man, and the decades of suffering that followed as his family searched for answers.'
Seth Mydans, former Southeast Asia correspondent for the New York Times

'As moving as it is well researched. Robert Carmichael's sharp prose and depth of knowledge of Cambodia's history transforms a daughter's search for her missing father into a nation's journey to find peace and reconciliation with its brutal history of genocide.'
Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father

'To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss.'

During the Khmer Rouge's four-year rule of terror, two million people, or one in every four, Cambodians, died. In describing one family's decades-long quest to learn their husband's and father's fate and the war crimes trial of Comrade Duch (pronounced 'Doyk'), who ran the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, When the Clouds Fell from the Sky illuminates the tragedy of a nation.

In 2012, Duch was sentenced to life imprisonment, having been found responsible for the deaths of more than 12,000 people. He was the first Khmer Rouge member to be jailed for crimes committed during Pol Pot's catastrophic 1975-9 rule during which millions were executed or died from starvation, illness and overwork as Cambodia underwent the most radical social transformation ever attempted. Designed to outdo even Mao's Great Leap Forward, it was an unparalleled disaster.

At the same time, the Khmer Rouge closed Cambodia's borders, barred all communication with the outside world and sought to turn the clock back to Year Zero. They outlawed religion, markets, money, education and even the concept of family.

The revolution soon imploded, driven to destruction by the incompetence and paranoia of the leadership. Yet instead of recognising their own failings, the leaders sought unseen enemies everywhere. In their pursuit of purity, they destroyed a nation.

Like hundreds of other returnees, when he returned in 1977 Ouk Ket was utterly unaware of the terrors being wrought in the revolution's name. Hundreds of thousands of other Cambodians perished in nearly 200 institutions like S-21.

To illustrate this era and its consequences, Robert Carmichael has woven together the stories of five people whose lives intersected to traumatic effect: Duch; Ket's daughter, Neary, who was just two when her father disappeared; Ouk Ket himself; Ket's French wife, Martine; and Ket's cousin, Sady, who never left Cambodia and still lives there today.

Through these personal stories, the author's own research, numerous interviews and months spent following Duch's trial, Robert extrapolates from the experience of one man to tell the story of a nation.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Asia

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 10, 2015

About the author

I am a South African journalist who lived in Cambodia for a decade reporting for radio, print and video for an array of international outlets. I now live in Hungary.

My (admittedly bleak) reading list reflects my abiding interest in two related facets - one, how people manage to withstand the most brutal and live-denying conditions; and two, why others believe it is right and proper to subject their fellow humans to such horrors.

My first book - When Clouds Fell from the Sky: A Disappearance, A Daughter's Search and Cambodia's First War Criminal - reflects that interest. Through five lives, it looks at five decades of Cambodia's recent history to explain what happened under Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79) and why.

I've often wondered why I am so interested in such subjects. I suspect that's partly due to growing up in South Africa at a time of significant social and political upheaval, and partly because my paternal grandfather (a Scot) survived appalling conditions on the Western Front during World War I.

My next book will be a work of fiction - if only to spare me from the relentless fact-checking that came with writing When Clouds Fell from the Sky!

My Amazon author page is here

I have a separate website for my journalism

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic” Though the origin of this quote is murky, it illustrates the truth that the sheer numbers involved in the mass murders and genocides of the 20th Century can so overwhelm the mind that the human cost of these horrific crimes gets lost. This is certainly true of the over two million murders that Pol Pot and his cadres committed in Cambodia during the period from 1975 to 1979. When Clouds Fell From The Sky by author Robert Carmichael reveals the human tragedy in the statistics by telling the story of what happened in Cambodia through the stories of several individuals who lived through this dark chapter in history, mostly victims, but a perpetrator as well.

The story of Neary’s decades-long search for her missing father, Ket, is one of the most compelling in the book and contrasts well with the career and eventual trial of Duch, one of those most responsible for the torture and murder of innocent people under the Democratic Kampuchea regime. The author deftly weaves these two narratives with several others in the book to demonstrate the humanity of those massacred by bringing their individuality into focus. Vignettes of family life before the terror in Neary’s extended family flesh out the devastating effects of the Khmer Rouge’s radical Maoist program after the guerilla group took control of the nation in April 1975. Too, through the story of Duch, head of the infamous S-21 torture center, we see an up-close portrait of a mass murderer, who carried out the Khmer Rouge regime’s increasingly paranoid orders by extracting confessions from thousands, including denounced Communist Party of Kampuchea members, before sending them to be murdered at a nearby killing field.

When Clouds Fell From The Sky is essential reading for anyone who wants to comprehend the history of modern-day Cambodia. Unlike many of the academic treatments of this period, it is accessible and demonstrates the fundamental resilience of the Cambodian people, a resilience that continues to the present day.

[Tom Mcmillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This represents a good journalistic account of the time the Khmer Rouge was in power in Cambodia all the way through to the recent war crimes trials in Phnom Penh by a westerner who lived in Cambodia for the past 9 years, Robert Carmichael. It is well researched and analyzed, and is written as an historical account of that time as well as an attempt to understand the nature of what was the second most brutal genocide in our time after the holocaust. Two million Cambodians were murdered or starved to death at the hands of their own government, the Khmer Rouge. 25% of the population of the country.

It is difficult to read this book without feeling great anger at the role the United States played first in bombing the country into oblivion and paving the way for the Khmer Rouge, and then turning their eyes away as the slaughter ensued. It is difficult to read this book without weeping for the Cambodians and the horror they endured for four long years. It is difficult to read this book to reminded how men can quickly lose their humanity when they are caught up in an ideological furor and further driven by constant fear to themselves and their family. And how most of them lacked real courage in the end and just went along. The real heroes of this story in the history of the world are the Cambodian people, simple and humble, who endured a life few of us can even imagine, let alone endure. They lost everything but their humanity.

To those who don't know the Cambodian story, read this book or something else that tells the story. Our savagery to each other seems endless, but we cannot forget any of it.

[Kate Wassell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get through this, but I’m so glad I’ve finished this now before leaving Cambodia. It’s been a very necessary thing to read whilst visiting the memorial sites and learning more about the history here. I’d recommend everyone to read this book or something similar to learn about the atrocities that happened in Cambodia only 50 years ago.

When The Clouds Fell From The Sky focuses for a large portion on the trial of Duch, one of the senior members of the Khmer Rouge, as well as one French-Cambodian civil party member whose father was killed during the regime. I think the way Carmichael balanced this very personal story of one family, whilst also telling the larger history of the regime and providing an in depth analysis of Duch’s trial, is very clever. I also found the interviews with various survivors and creators (or even perpetrators) fascinating.

It’s astounding to me that I knew absolutely nothing about what happened here before visiting Cambodia, and that even whilst studying the Vietnam war in school Cambodia (to my memory) was never mentioned. Absolutely everyone should read and learn about Cambodia’s history! I think this book is a really good place to start

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gripping and gut wrenching read that follows one family as they try and find out the truth behind the disappearance of their husband/father during the Khmer Rouge reign in the mid to late 70s and draws on the experiences of Out Ket's cousin, who survived the regime and remained in Cambodia. Sat amongst these very human searches and experiences, Carmichael covers the history and politics of the Khmer reign and looking in depth at the S-21 prison, Cambodia's version of Auschwitz (a comparison that is not made lightly) and the man that ran it, Comrade Duch. The interweaving of these stories adds a depth and realism to the events that truly brings home the horror of the events in the 70s when the western world was enjoying increased freedoms and comfort. Carmichael does well to balance the objective facts and figures with the subjective realities of what they meant to those caught up in the regime's nets. A chilling and all too familiar story, and not just one from our collective past.

[Diane]

Christian Science Monitor reviewed on 11/2/2015 - "A veteran journalist who has spent a total of eight years in Cambodia, Carmichael chronicles the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge through the stories of five different people...The book’s title 'When Clouds Fell From the Sky' refers to a traditional Cambodian saying which evokes the idea of human freedom as well as the city people who supposedly looked down Cambodia’s peasants. According to Carmichael, the Khmer Rouge regarded the country’s city people as automatically suspect...Carmichael's book brilliantly and movingly [tells] the story behind the massive collective tragedy."

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an harrowing book about the events in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge government and the afterward struggle of a daughter of one of those executed in the infamous S-21 prison in Phnom Penh to bring to justice the head of the prison, who ended up being tried and convicted as a war criminal. The book is not only very interesting because it can be a starting point to understand the criminal regime that governed Cambodia between 1975 and 1977, but also (as would be expected from a work of a journalist) because it puts a human touch to the events, and we come to know rather well the life of Out Ket (the Cambodian father whose killing is the leitmotif of the book), and also that of the chief hangman of the regime, comrade Duch. Not a cheerful book, but definitely an attention grabbing one!

[Ana-Maria Bujor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will be heading out for Cambodia in a few days and read this to understand its recent history. It's fantastic.
It mostly centers around the trial of the leader of the most infamous prison of the Khmer Rouge regime, Duch. But the author did so much more with the book. He chose to give us a very human account, by relating every aspect of the book to the story of one particular family why lost a father and husband. Their voices join the voices of many other experts, survivors, and perpetrators too. Even Duch's action's are presented in a nuanced and balanced manner, though in the end, there is no answer.
While very informative, this book is also heartbreaking and powerful, especially the last page. It will stay with you.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read many stories of Pol Pol survivors, until now mostly those who lived in Phnom Penh in the 1970s. This story took us into the lives of an overseas Khmer who got called back during those years. We meet his French family he left behind, and his local family in Cambodia during those years.
It was so great to read this all in story form, I'd read bits and pieces of the information here and there. But with this book, it makes more sense. And with the story based on family, you can feel more connection to it which leads to greater interest and understanding.

I agree with Jon Swain "One finishes it with an ache in the heart'"

[Firqin Robroek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book purely by chance, while waiting for a flight at the Phnom Penh Airport, intrigued by the history of such a beautiful country I was in the past few days. This book gave me a different view and perspective of this developing country. A moving story about a familys search for an answer and an incredible story about the dark history that looms Cambodia. Very, very well written.

[Nancy Fondriest · Rating 3 out of 5]

So powerful. Incredible research and combination of Cambodian specific details and comparisons to tragedies in other countries/cultures that gave much needed context. Additional editing would have supported a more even flow. Commend the author for his dedication to presenting a comprehensive account of this horror.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly researched account of the horrific genocide of Cambodians under the ruling of Khmers Rouges. I learned a great deal about this gut-wrenching period and appreciated the seemingly unbiased perspective of the author

[Chris Schaffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a slog.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a paperback copy of this.

[Robert Carmichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given that I wrote this, I'm not going to provide a written review.