Dith Pran, best known for being a survivor of the Cambodian genocide, was born in Cambodia in 1942. As a young man he worked as a photojournalist, and his job brought him into contact with a New York Times reporter named Sydney Schanberg. When the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh both men stayed behind to report. Schanberg was later evacuated to the US but Pran, a Cambodian native, was forced to stay behind and was captured by the Khmer Rouge. After five years of hard labor and meager rations Pran made it to a Red Cross camp in Thailand. As soon as he received word Schanberg had Pran brought back to the US where he became a photographer for the Times.

Schanberg’s and Pran experiences became the basis for the 1984 award winning film The Killing Fields. Pran also went on to found the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project and campaigned for recognitions for the victims of the genocide. Sadly, in 2008 Pran died of pancreatic cancer a mere three months after his diagnosis.