Bou Meng, one of the few survivors of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison, died Friday at his home in Thommeak Trai village, Kandal province, Cambodia. He was 85 years old. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum announced his death, citing complications from a stroke he suffered earlier this year.

Bou Meng was among only a handful of prisoners to live through the brutal interrogation and torture center known as Tuol Sleng, also called S-21, where approximately 14,000 people were detained during the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979. Most detainees were executed shortly after arrest, with the regime responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

His survival was attributed to his skill as a painter. After two months imprisoned and a week of torture, a guard asked if anyone could paint, leading to Bou Meng’s assignment to create portraits of Khmer Rouge leaders, including Pol Pot, as well as ideological figures like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Mistakes in his artwork could have proved fatal, making his role a matter of life and death.

Later in life, Bou Meng became a prominent figure at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where he sold copies of his biography and shared his story with visitors. He was known for carrying the distressing memories of his fellow prisoners, many of whom were executed, and was haunted by their voices in his dreams, urging him to seek justice.

Bou Meng testified in 2009 at the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, the prison’s commandant who was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. During the trial, Bou Meng spoke to Duch about the fate of his wife, who had been arrested alongside him in 1977 and was believed to have been executed at a killing field. This personal loss was reflected in a painting Bou Meng later created depicting a woman facing imminent death.

Born on April 4, 1941, in Kampong Cham province, Bou Meng was raised in a peasant family and spent part of his childhood in a Buddhist pagoda where he taught himself to paint. He initially worked creating movie posters before joining the Khmer Rouge movement with his wife, Ma Yoeun, motivated by the U.S. bombing campaigns and the upheaval of Cambodia’s political landscape.

During the Khmer Rouge regime, Bou Meng was forced to move from the countryside into Phnom Penh, where he worked as a painter and typist for the regime’s government office, while his wife served as a nurse. Both were arrested in 1977 under unclear charges. Under torture, Bou Meng falsely confessed to espionage, providing names that led to further arrests and executions.

After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Bou Meng returned to Tuol Sleng, which had been converted into a museum, and worked there for some time before supporting himself by painting murals in Buddhist temples. He endured the loss of two children during the regime and later remarried, leaving behind a second wife, Duong Chhun Ny, and a daughter, Meng Thavry.

Bou Meng’s life embodied the resilience and tragedy of Cambodia’s recent history, serving as a living testimony to one of the darkest chapters in the 20th century.