Nashoba Publishing/John Love Syphorn Phan talks to students at Groton-Dunstable Middle School on Monday about his experiences in his home country of Cambodia in the early 1970s.By Pierre Comtois, Correspondent
Nashoba Publishing
GROTON -- Students at the Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School received a lesson in courage and faith last Monday when a survivor of Cambodia's infamous "killing fields" came to speak to them about his experiences living under the regime of the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
"The only way to survive was to be strong," Syphorn Phan told a group of students that filled the lecture hall at the Middle School North building. "You had to be mentally, physically and spiritually strong."
Phan, a pharmacist at Lowell General Hospital's oncology unit, was only a boy in 1975 when the communist Khmer Rouge overthrew the U.S. backed government of Cambodia and under Pol Pot, proceeded with its plan to take the country back to its agrarian past.
"The story of my survival and coming to America has always been with me so it's not difficult to tell," said Phan of any hesitance to revisit those dark days when death was always near at hand. "I just relate my experiences as they happened. But with young children, I've found that it's a good idea to bring along some slides to give them a better idea of what it was like in those days. As disturbing as the truth was, sometimes it's good for them to know the facts."
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