Vann Nath, 1945-2011: Evil regime … Vann Nath depicted Tuol Sleng prison. Photo: AFP
September 13, 2011
The Sydney Morning Herald
Vann Nath's talent as an artist helped him survive Cambodia's most notorious prison during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in the 1970s and his later paintings bore witness to the prison's many horrors.
Vann Nath was one of only seven prisoners to survive Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school that was also known as ''S-21'' and which nearby factory workers called ''the place where people go in and never come out''.
Between 1975 and 1979, a reported 14,000 Cambodian men, women and children were brought to the prison, where they were interrogated, tortured and executed.
With Vann Nath's death, only two of the seven surviving former prisoners are left.
Born into a farming family in Battambang, he spent a few years as a monk before becoming an apprentice artist. He was operating a small business painting movie posters, billboards and portraits before the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and he was forced to work in the rice fields.
Vann Nath never knew why he was arrested in January 1978. ''They arrested nearly everyone in my village,'' he said with a shrug in a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Like the dozens of other prisoners who shared his prison cell, he had his ankles shackled to the concrete floor and was given only a few spoonfuls of rice each day. They were so hungry, he once recalled, they would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling.
But his life in prison changed when guards entered the cell and asked for ''the painter''.
After being carried into an office, he was shown a picture of Pol Pot and asked if he could paint the Khmer Rouge leader's portrait.
''I was not really sure what I should say,'' he recalled.
''I said, 'Right now, I can't even stand up.'''
Given enough food to keep up his energy, Vann Nath began painting head-and-shoulders portraits of Pol Pot every day. From sunrise to midnight, he said, he painted ''the same portrait, over and over'', his quiet work punctuated by the screams of prisoners being tortured.
''I hated him while I was painting him,'' he said. ''I wished I could kill him.''
Vann Nath had been in the prison almost a year when Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and the Khmer Rouge was driven from power.
Cambodian guards took the prisoners away to be killed but they encountered Vietnamese soldiers. During the battle, Vann Nath and six other prisoners escaped.
The death toll of the Khmer Rouge is estimated to be between 1.2 million and 1.7 million.
Two of Vann Nath's sons died while he was imprisoned. After reuniting with his wife, he reportedly had three more children.
Tuol Sleng prison was converted into the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which opened in 1980 and contains paintings by Vann Nath that depict the atrocities he witnessed or heard described, including water torture and electric-shock treatment.
A self-portrait shows an emaciated Vann Nath during his imprisonment. ''I was just a body then,'' he said in 1997. ''My spirit had gone out.''
He chronicled his story in the 1998 book A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21 and he was featured prominently in the 2003 documentary S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine.
Vann Nath testified in 2009 at a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh that tried the prison's chief, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch. In July last year, Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Los Angeles Times
Vann Nath's talent as an artist helped him survive Cambodia's most notorious prison during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in the 1970s and his later paintings bore witness to the prison's many horrors.
Vann Nath was one of only seven prisoners to survive Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school that was also known as ''S-21'' and which nearby factory workers called ''the place where people go in and never come out''.
Between 1975 and 1979, a reported 14,000 Cambodian men, women and children were brought to the prison, where they were interrogated, tortured and executed.
With Vann Nath's death, only two of the seven surviving former prisoners are left.
Born into a farming family in Battambang, he spent a few years as a monk before becoming an apprentice artist. He was operating a small business painting movie posters, billboards and portraits before the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and he was forced to work in the rice fields.
Vann Nath never knew why he was arrested in January 1978. ''They arrested nearly everyone in my village,'' he said with a shrug in a 1997 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Like the dozens of other prisoners who shared his prison cell, he had his ankles shackled to the concrete floor and was given only a few spoonfuls of rice each day. They were so hungry, he once recalled, they would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling.
But his life in prison changed when guards entered the cell and asked for ''the painter''.
After being carried into an office, he was shown a picture of Pol Pot and asked if he could paint the Khmer Rouge leader's portrait.
''I was not really sure what I should say,'' he recalled.
''I said, 'Right now, I can't even stand up.'''
Given enough food to keep up his energy, Vann Nath began painting head-and-shoulders portraits of Pol Pot every day. From sunrise to midnight, he said, he painted ''the same portrait, over and over'', his quiet work punctuated by the screams of prisoners being tortured.
''I hated him while I was painting him,'' he said. ''I wished I could kill him.''
Vann Nath had been in the prison almost a year when Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in December 1978 and the Khmer Rouge was driven from power.
Cambodian guards took the prisoners away to be killed but they encountered Vietnamese soldiers. During the battle, Vann Nath and six other prisoners escaped.
The death toll of the Khmer Rouge is estimated to be between 1.2 million and 1.7 million.
Two of Vann Nath's sons died while he was imprisoned. After reuniting with his wife, he reportedly had three more children.
Tuol Sleng prison was converted into the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which opened in 1980 and contains paintings by Vann Nath that depict the atrocities he witnessed or heard described, including water torture and electric-shock treatment.
A self-portrait shows an emaciated Vann Nath during his imprisonment. ''I was just a body then,'' he said in 1997. ''My spirit had gone out.''
He chronicled his story in the 1998 book A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21 and he was featured prominently in the 2003 documentary S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine.
Vann Nath testified in 2009 at a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh that tried the prison's chief, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch. In July last year, Duch was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Los Angeles Times
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