Dith Pran died three months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was always a fighter, and still had strong ambition to come out of the hospital alive. Unfortunately, on March 30th 2008, he passed away. The life he left behind was one of a true story of a hero. We will always remember the story of Dith Pran, and in his honor, we shall never, EVER forget the Cambodian Genocide.
By 1986, Dith Pran gained American citizenship. Pran was a resident of Woodbridge, New Jersey. He worked as a photojournalist with the New York Times. Dith Pran actively worked for recognition of the Cambodian Genocide, as well as with its victims. This was mostly accomplished by founding The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project. Throughout his life, Pran was both married and divorced two times. First with wife Ser Moeun Dith, and later with Kim DePaul. Alas, Pran got in touch with long time friend, Sydney Schanberg.
Pran worked with New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg in Southeast Asia to cover the fall of the capitol, Phnom Penh. During 1975, there was a genocide occuring throughout the country. Communist leaders known as the Khmer Rouge wanted to return to rural life. In order to accomplish such goals, the educated and wealthy of the country had to be eliminated. One day the foreign reporters had a chance to leave the country, and including Schanberg, they did. Only Pran was not allowed to go. Rather than being persecuted, Dith Pran pretended not to speak English and/or French, because that would give away his secret of being an intellectual. He lived four years in Cambodia pretending to be a taxi driver as he labored for the Khmer Rouge and nearly starved to death. Pran was tortured by whitnessing murders of the innocent, and of his own people. This lasted until neighboring country Vietnam finally stepped in and overthrew the government in the year December of 1978. Pran traveled 40 miles by foot to cross the Cambodian border into Laos, where he could be a saved refugee. While on this long journey, Pran walked along fields of skulls, where he realized the missing people ended up courtesy of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. This is why he coined the phrase "Killing Fields", to describe the incident. When finally visiting his hometown, he discovered 50 family members had been murdered, including his three brothers and one sister. October 3rd of the following year, Pran escaped to Thailand, as he still feared people would figure out his United States ties.
Born in a city outside of the ancient Cambodian capitol Angkor Wat, Dith Pran grew up in Siem Reap. He was son of a public works official. As a very clever and studious child, Dith Pran taught himself English. A language that would later be used to his advantage, as he served for the US military as a translator. He also learned French through the school system, which at the time, Cambodia was a colony of France. Later, Pran worked for a British film crew, and afterwards, as a hotel receptionist.
