Bun Tek SAM (c.1925-1988)

married: c. 1950 Cambodia

Kim Sin CHHOR
Daughter of Ky CHHOR & Koot YORS

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Children:

Sambath SAM
married Yok Le LY
Battambang, Cambodia
Children:
Sothitya SAM
Sin Heng SAM
Lida SAM
Elina SAM

Samon SAM
married: Kong Su CHANG
Melbourne, Australia
Children:
Remay CHANG
Lester CHANG

Thany SAM

Phandy SAM
married: Alan Derek THOMAS
1991 Melbourne, Australia
Children:
Alysia Lindad Thomas-Sam
Bunarith Robert Thomas-Sam

Nika SAM
married: Barry Robert THOMAS
2003 Melbourne, Australia

Bun Tek SAM was born in Siem Reap, located in the northern part of Cambodia, near the famous temples of Angkor Wat. He married Kim Sin CHHOR about 1950. Kim Sin CHHOR was from the nearby town of Battambang which is where the couple lived and raised their family of one son and five daughters. Bun Tek SAM was not a particularly successful businessman but, by the time of the rise of Pol Pot's Khamer Rouge, he and his astute wife were making a good living selling petrol in Battambang . Due to their 'relative' wealth, the family was targeted and sent to work in agricultural labour camps in the Cambodian jungle. Life was extremely difficult in the camps, with heavy manuel labour, never enough food to eat and always the threat of the 'Killing Fields' hanging over their heads.

Eventually, fearing the worst was to come, the SAM family made a desparate bid for safety and freedom, fleeing north to the border of Thailand. They travelled through the jungle in order to avoid detection by the Khamer Rouge. At the Thai border they were put in to a series of refugee camps where they spent long, anxious years waiting for confirmation of their refugee status, still under threat from the Khamer Rouge. The SAM family was finally accepted by Australian authorities as refugee immigrants in the mid 1980s and settled in Melbourne, Victoria.

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Last Updated January 2006