‘I Lived to Tell the World’ displays photographs and videos detailing people’s experiences, as well as artifacts from their lives with hand-written descriptions

Saron Khut remembers the five years in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge before his family escaped and moved to the United States.

From the time he was 5 to about 10 years old, he and other children ran around looking for food, picking berries and plants, spearfishing and chasing birds. Khut said they were hungry and filled their stomachs with anything they could find.

“I am a survivor of the genocide from 1975 to 1980,” Khut said. “For me personally, as a child, I lived through hell with nothing; one set of clothing and barely any food for me to eat.”

Khut and two other survivors of genocide told their stories at the Oregon Historical Society, or OHS, downtown June 20 on World Refugee Day. In partnership with The Immigrant Story nonprofit, OHS launched a multimedia exhibition, “I Lived to Tell the World,” which will continue through Nov. 17.

The exhibit sheds light on the suffering brought on by conflict throughout the world while highlighting the human capacity for moving forward.

Eliza Canty-Jones, OHS chief program officer, led the conversation with Khut, Dijana Ihas, who played viola with the Sarajevo String Quartet during the three-year siege in her country, and Samir Mustafic, a former Bosnian soldier. Khut and Ihas’s stories are among 13 featured in a book by award-winning journalist and author Elizabeth Mehren, “I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War,” which also inspired the title of the OHS exhibit.

The United Nations Refugee Agency reports 117.3 million people forcibly displaced worldwide as of 2023, and as of June 13, the agency considers 37.6 million of them to be refugees. Of these refugees, 43% are children under the age of 18. These numbers are increasing with conflicts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and other places.

“You can share those big numbers, and they’re difficult to handle but with an individual person telling you their experience, you have a much greater connection to that,” Canty-Jones said.

Palestinians account for nearly one-sixth of the 37.6 million UN-recognized refugees and the number is growing as the Israeli military continues its campaign in the Palestinian territories. Israel's military campaign killed more than 37,500 Palestinians and injured an additional 85,000 as of June 22, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The campaign has also displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians since a Hamas attack killed over 1,000 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the UN.

“My heart aches for people of Ukraine, Palestine, even Israel," Khut said. "People are displaced, death everywhere, I can relate to what's going on with them. War causes ugliness.

“I hope the war stops in the Middle East and Ukraine. I think it's unfortunate that leaders fight and people die.”

All of the people portrayed in the exhibit and book live in Oregon and Canty-Jones hopes people will gain a deeper appreciation for the complexity and diversity of Oregonians’ experiences.

“People became refugees because policies, people in power or social norms have dehumanized them,” Canty-Jones said. “We see that in our own community. We see that with people who are suffering addiction or mental illness and also don’t have a safe place to live inside.”

Visitors walk through the exhibit and see photographs and videos detailing people’s experiences, as well as artifacts from their lives with hand-written descriptions. These are the objects they brought with them.

Saron Khut’s immigration story

The stories shared by refugees, including Khut’s, often start with genocide, the systemized killing of a nation or ethnic group of people.

Khut remembers Cambodia as a vibrant country until it fell to the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot. With the intent to make Cambodia an agrarian country, they killed intellectuals, including Khut’s father, a teacher. They abolished education and religion.

“I want no one to experience what I went through,” Khut said.

Vietnam invaded and overthrew Pol Pot’s regime in 1979, according to Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program. This loosened the Khmer Rouge’s grip, and with the help of her brother in the United States, Khut’s mother seized the opportunity to escape.

“We traveled with a group of 100 people and only walked at night,” Khut said. “Moonlight was the only guide, no lights. Imagine being 10 years old, walking through jungle and fields at night.”

Khut’s mother took him and his sister through the mountains to Thailand, where they stayed at a large refugee camp until their immigration papers came through in 1981. They flew to San Francisco and then to Portland.

Khut describes life in the United States as 100 times better than his previous experiences. He believes his childhood trauma taught him to survive and fit in by getting along with everyone.

Upon arrival, he started third grade at Richmond Elementary School. He eventually graduated high school and college with a degree in art and architecture. He worked as an operations manager at FedEx and then Intel.

Khut’s mother, known to family and friends here as “Mama Khut,” lives near him and people in the Southeast Asian community regard her as a village elder, according to Mehren’s book.

“Now that I am here, I don’t want to waste my opportunity,” Khut said. “Now that I’m here, I do my best to make a living, give back and be a good human being. I want to cherish my life and the blessing I received from America.”

Khut became a U.S. citizen in 1996. He eventually opened a restaurant, the Mekong Bistro on Northeast Siskiyou Street, which is a hub for the Southeast Asian community.

When he started the restaurant, his mother was the main cook and then she became involved in the business aspect. Along with sports, Khut loves music, and Mekong Bistro is a gathering place for blues, jazz and Latin music. The restaurant recently hosted an Iraqi wedding, a Vietnamese wedding and a traditional Indian tiger dance.

Staying connected

The panelists answered questions about their lives, humanity, culture and solidarity at the OHS event on World Refugee Day. Audience members filled the seats and listened attentively.

Mustafic, now a senior software architect for the state of Oregon, was hit by a mortar when he was a 21-year-old soldier in Bosnia. The mortar killed his mother and sister and severely injured him.

“If I change one mind to help one human being on the planet, I’ve done my job,” Mustafic said. “To bring a smile to a single person is a huge accomplishment.”

When asked what it is like to have multiple cultural identities, the panelists were clear.

“Oregon is my home,” Mustafic said. “I love it. But I was born Bosnian, and I will die Bosnian.”

Mustafic volunteers with the Islamic Bosniaks Educational & Cultural Organization, teaching Bosnian language and culture to children of Bosnian immigrants.

Khut enjoys visits to Cambodia, where he can immerse himself in the culture. He also remembers walking into a store as a teenager, buying a small American flag and putting it on his shirt.

“I love having two identities,” Khut said.

Khut founded New Year in the Park 10 years ago, an annual event on the last Saturday in April at Glenhaven Park in Portland that draws 10,000 people to celebrate Southeast Asian cultures.

For Ihas, music is a constant in her life. She’s a music professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove and founded Pacific University String Project, providing music education for disadvantaged youth. She finds joy in teaching her students and sees this as a way to return the favor given to her when she studied music in first grade.

When asked by an audience member what would make the refugee experience better in the United States, the panelists agreed that refugee settlement programs should provide six months or more of support while they get on their feet.

Ihas pointed out other countries, like Canada, provide food, housing and job opportunities when refugees arrive. The United States does not provide such robust supports. Mustafic said it’s a worthy investment.

The audience applauded when Mustafic said refugees are a net positive for this country.

The power of storytelling and common themes

Storytelling has been a strong component in Sankar Raman’s life since his childhood in a small village where he said the best storytellers were the most popular kids. He moved to the United States from India to earn a degree in engineering from Purdue University and is a digital photographer and author.

Following the 2016 presidential election, Raman felt the public animosity toward immigrants. His response was to gather stories, allowing people to share their experiences. This is how The Immigrant Story came about. The nonprofit’s mission is to document, narrate and curate stories about immigrants in order to promote empathy and advance an inclusive community.

Volunteers gather stories from Oregon State University, University of Oregon, Reed College and Lewis and Clark College students, as well as stories from some non-Oregon universities like University of California, Berkeley.

The students are mostly juniors with an interest in writing, born in the United States with immigrant or refugee family members, according to Raman. Volunteers mentor the young writers. The organization pays students $250 for their writing.

“We think people forgot the art of listening to and telling stories,” Raman said. “Because of that, we don’t know our own neighbors and community very well.”

The Immigrant Story produces a podcast, “Many Roads to Here,” with recorded stories from Ihas, Khut, Mustafic and many others.

Mehren, an accomplished journalist, author and educator, started volunteering with The Immigrant Story a few years ago. Her conversations with Raman led to the idea of publishing a book. The idea grew, and Mehren gathered stories from immigrants for “I Lived to Tell the World: Stories from Survivors of Holocaust, Genocide, and the Atrocities of War.”

“I wanted to present these individuals as people who experienced global events and how it changed their lives, what were the lessons they came out with and what are their views on the events," Mehren said.

Mehren was also careful to reject stereotypes about immigrants in her writing.

“I didn't want to feed into the trope of the grateful immigrant,” Mehren said.

Mehren met survivors through refugee organizations and word of mouth.

She wanted to record the stories for future readers.

Mehren first interviewed Les and Eva Aigner, Holocaust survivors from Hungary who were married for 62 years until Les passed away in 2021. The couple helped establish the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park in 2004 and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

Mehren said adaptability, resourcefulness, resilience and learned wisdom were common threads throughout different stories.

“This is not trauma porn,” Mehren said. “We tell how you can humanize global events and how human beings adapt and survive.”

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