April 1975 – Phnom Penh – Saigon

The exhibition April 1975 – Phnom Penh – Saigon opens on April 8 at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the Memory Module 2025 program. This exhibition explores the lives and work of journalists who covered the end of the wars in Cambodia and Vietnam in April 1975. After more than a decade of conflict, the Second Indochina War ended suddenly, which caught many and even the victorious forces of the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese Army. Few could have predicted the course of the war better than journalists who had been reporting from the field for years. However, the end of the war came so quickly that fateful decisions about staying or evacuating had to be made within hours. While some tried to catch the last helicopter, others headed to airports in other countries to board the last plane. Some managed to save their loved ones, while others had to leave everything and go alone. Among those who remained were 31 Cambodian journalists, killed by the Khmer Rouge while witnessing one of the most dramatic events of the era.

The exhibition was curated by The VII Foundation Managing Director Gary Knight and journalist and author Jon Swain. Through photographs, written reports and personal items of journalists who documented the victory of the communist forces, visitors get an insight into the last days of the war. Exhibition producer Ziyah Gafić created an immersive experience using images printed on canvas banners, newspaper clippings and objects such as Françoise Demulder’s camera and Jon Swain’s passport, which he and his fellow journalists forged in a desperate attempt to ensure Dith Pran’s safety.

More than a hundred photos, taken by numerous photojournalists, show different perspectives of these events. Among them are images that have become symbols, such as Hugh van Es’s iconic photograph of a helicopter evacuation from the roof of a building in Saigon, or Thai Khac Chuong’s photograph of an American official punching a man trying to board a plane. These scenes are contrasted with lesser-known but equally significant documents, such as the sixteen-page feature that the Japanese magazine Asahi Graph dedicated to the work of its reporter Naoki Mabuchi, 20 Days in Phnom Penh, and archival materials of the Vietnam News Agency.

“War reporting inevitably results in journalistic casualties. That was the case in Cambodia and Vietnam,” says Jon Swain. “I see this exhibition as a way of honoring all the journalists who lost their lives reporting from the battlefield – young and old, men and women, from all over the world, whose names are inscribed on the wall at the entrance to the exhibition.”

“To me, this is the story of an almost mythical generation of journalists who worked in the golden age of print,” says Gary Knight. “Rarely in history has the media had so much influence on politics and such a strong connection with the public as in the period following the wars in Cambodia and Vietnam. This generation of journalists set the standard for all who came after them. With the exhibition, we want to show the human side of those who reported from the field – to highlight their strengths, but also their vulnerabilities. We also want to pay equal tribute to Vietnamese and Cambodian journalists, who were often overlooked, and many of whom lost their lives.”