Ep 237: Raised by Survivors with Bernie Furshpan and guest Sophal Ear on hmTv

Ep. 237 – Raised by Survivors with Sophal Ear

In this powerful episode of Raised by Survivors on hmTv, host Bernie Furshpan sits down with Dr. Sophal Ear, Cambodian-American scholar, author, and survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. Together, they explore Sophal’s family’s extraordinary escape, the hidden heroes who made survival possible, and the intergenerational impact of genocide.

The conversation weaves personal history with broader lessons—parallels between the Holocaust and Cambodia’s genocide, the dangers of authoritarianism, and the role of education and empathy in building resilience. Sophal also shares the story behind his acclaimed TED Talk, the importance of carrying his mother’s legacy forward, and his vision for how young people can transform inherited trauma into leadership and hope.

This episode reminds us that “never again” is not just a phrase—it’s a call to action for every generation.

👉 Listen now on hmTv and be inspired to choose humanity.

Transcript

Ep. 237 — Raised by Survivors

Host: Bernie Furshpan
Guest: Sophal Ear
Series: hmTv – Raised by Survivors

[00:00:32] Bernie (intro):
Hello and thank you for joining me today. I’m your host, Bernie Furshpan, and today’s episode of Raised by Survivors on hmTv features a very special guest: Dr. Sophal Ear. Sophal is a Cambodian-American scholar, author, and survivor who has dedicated his life to exploring the lessons of genocide, authoritarianism, and resilience. His family’s escape from the Khmer Rouge and his path to becoming a leading voice on global development and human rights are both inspiring and deeply relevant to our mission here at the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center.

Today, Sophal and I will talk about intergenerational trauma, the dangers of authoritarianism, and the power of education and memory to build resilience and hope. We’ll also explore connections between Cambodia’s history and the Holocaust—and what those lessons mean for us and for future generations.

Sophal Ear, welcome to hmTv.

[00:01:25] Sophal:
Thank you, Bernie. It’s an honor to be here.

[00:01:30] Bernie:
Let’s start big. What’s the most urgent lesson we must take from your story and your work?

[00:01:40] Sophal:
That humanity matters, and it can save lives. My mother escaped the Khmer Rouge with her five children because strangers chose to help. They noticed her Vietnamese wasn’t strong and spent days drilling her so she could pass as Vietnamese—at a time when that meant a chance to leave. These individuals—people whose names I barely know—made our survival possible. From there, more acts of courage followed: a chance encounter with an old neighbor who got word to my aunt in Ho Chi Minh City; my uncle racing down the Mekong to pull us out just before a deadline to move us deeper into the camp zone.

The lesson is simple and hard: we can all be heroes—often quietly. You don’t need wealth or status; you need willingness to act when it counts.

[00:03:10] Bernie:
Beautifully said. There are painful parallels with my parents’ story—upstanders who hid, fed, and protected them at enormous risk. One family who sheltered my father—then only ten—was killed for it. That’s the weight he carried. It’s why we teach young people not just history, but empathy. Genetically speaking, we’re all distant cousins—15th to 50th. If we truly embraced that, we’d treat each other a lot better.

You were young, but you survived the Khmer Rouge, and your journey through America since has been remarkable—scholarship, writing, even TED. Tell us how that came about.

[00:04:10] Sophal:
Serendipity. I was teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. On a flight, I was upgraded by some miracle and sat next to a gentleman named Bud. He mentioned a conference in Long Beach—big names like Al Gore. It was TED. I looked it up, saw the price, and thought, “That’s not for me.” Then TED created the Fellows program. Bud emailed me the link—he didn’t work for TED; he was just a TEDster—and I applied from the field while doing research in Cambodia.

I included a 2005 New York Times Magazine “Lives” piece—“One Way Out”—my mother’s escape story as told to me. That personal arc made the difference. I was selected as a TED Fellow. Later, I applied to give a talk. TED—being very TED—said, “Don’t lecture on your research; tell your story.” They flew my mother in. My wife—nine months pregnant—sat with her in the front row. When I finished, I introduced my mom; she stood, and the room rose with her. For me, it wasn’t just my story; it represented a people who had to find a way out—through Thailand’s Khao-I-Dang camps like my wife’s family, or through Vietnam by passing as Vietnamese, like mine.

[00:06:10] Bernie:
I can imagine your mother’s pride. I wish my parents were here to hear me tell their stories now. You’ve drawn comparisons between the Cambodian genocide and the Holocaust. Let’s talk numbers, scope, and intent. Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. What about Cambodia—and was it ethnic, political, or something else?

[00:06:35] Sophal:
Estimates for Cambodia range from 1.5 to over 2 million; the commonly cited figure is 1.7 million deaths between 1975 and 1979. Some will always minimize or muddy it—just as Holocaust deniers do.

On targeting: the Khmer Rouge killed ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, and the Cham (Muslim Cambodians)—clearly genocidal campaigns against minorities. But the bulk of victims were Khmer themselves—especially urban dwellers. The regime saw city people as parasitic and forcibly emptied Phnom Penh and other cities. People were driven to the countryside for rice production: starvation, disease, overwork, and executions followed. Some scholars dislike the term “auto-genocide,” and the UN Genocide Convention famously omits “political groups” from the definition—history and geopolitics had a hand in that omission. But labels don’t change the reality: the regime engineered mass atrocity, often with explicitly exterminationist intent toward “enemies,” foreign and domestic.

[00:08:15] Bernie:
Right—and to underline: genocide isn’t negated because perpetrators and victims share a nationality. German Jews were Germans—still genocide. The technicalities of definitions shouldn’t eclipse the human toll. What differences stand out to you between the Holocaust and the Khmer Rouge?

[00:08:35] Sophal:
A few.

1. Social engineering vs. industrial annihilation. The Khmer Rouge pursued an agrarian utopia—emptying cities, weaponizing famine and forced labor, atomizing families, and re-programming children to sever respect for elders. The Nazis built an industrialized apparatus of deportation and death. Different machinery, same contempt for human life.
2. Class/urban targeting. In Cambodia, “city = suspect.” That wasn’t the organizing logic of the Holocaust.
3. Shifting enemy categories. The Khmer Rouge alternately courted and targeted Vietnam; timing could mean survival or death. My family survived in a brief window when saying “we’re Vietnamese” enabled repatriation—months later it would have been a death sentence.
4. Ideological packaging. The Khmer Rouge drew on Maoist/communist frames of purity through peasantry and revolution. Nazism fused racial pseudoscience with totalitarianism. Different catechisms, similar absolutism.

[00:10:05] Bernie:
You mentioned child separation and re-programming. Your brother’s nightmares—decades later—illustrate trauma’s half-life. Intergenerational trauma can echo for seven generations. How has it touched you?

[00:10:20] Sophal:
I don’t have explicit memories of the worst moments—I was very young—but the burden and blessing of survival shaped me. I’ve felt a responsibility to carry the torch my mother couldn’t, due to language and circumstance. We later made a documentary with a Singaporean director—my narration, early recordings of my mother, some animation. Early screenings were hard; I’d step out during the most cutting moments. Over time, I learned to sit with it so I could teach through it.

My brother still texts me about recurring images—a man who’d hanged himself in a neighboring hut, flies on his face. That’s PTSD talking across decades. He says he’s fine. I know he isn’t. Many in our community took divergent paths: some excelled; some ended up in gangs, prison, even deportation to a “home” they’d never seen. Survival leaves scars, not instructions. We have to build the instructions—together.

[00:12:05] Bernie:
And that’s where purpose can be a lifeline. You’ve turned pain into teaching. Let’s close with a forward look. What’s your vision for young people—how do they transform trauma into activism, resilience, and leadership?

[00:12:20] Sophal:
They inherit history’s lessons and burdens—and the freedom to re-imagine. My hope is that young people use our stories to cultivate empathy instead of numbness, and courage instead of cynicism. “Never again” sounds tired only because we haven’t earned it yet. We can. It will require refusing the easy othering, calling out authoritarian reflexes early, and practicing everyday heroism—those small, decisive acts that once saved my family. Learn the past, don’t be chained to it, and build new systems that make decency the default.

[00:13:25] Bernie (closing):
We say “never again” about the Holocaust too. The work is to turn a slogan into a system—education, empathy, and action that actually interrupt the cycle. Today’s youth are wildly creative; maybe they’ll design what we couldn’t. Sophal, thank you for your courage, clarity, and for honoring your mother by honoring the truth.

To our listeners: thank you for joining hmTv and Raised by Survivors. If this conversation moved you, share it—start one of your own. And for a powerful, complementary story on memory and moral courage, watch The Weight of Memory: I Am Bernie Furshpan.

Until next time—be an upstander, not a bystander.