Haing Ngor’s Fatal Silence

Cambodian OB-GYN Haing S. Ngor survived the Khmer Rouge after 1975 by hiding his medical education, his professional skills, and even the fact that he wore glasses because the regime targeted intellectuals and professionals. In 1978, after the Khmer Rouge expelled him from Phnom Penh and sent him to a rice farm, his wife, Chang My-Huoy, went into labor and needed a cesarean section. Ngor knew how to perform the operation, but doing so would have exposed his training and could have gotten his entire family killed. His wife and their unborn child died during labor, and Ngor later escaped Cambodia, moved to the United States in 1980, and eventually won an Academy Award for starring in The Killing Fields in 1984.

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