HOF019: TON Nu Thuy Lan

In the final days before the fall of Saigon, 15-year-old Lan Ton left Vietnam with her parents and sister on a helicopter , in the company of German journalists. Her father, a university professor at the time, had come to know them a few years earlier when he worked as a journalist himself and then as minister of information in South Vietnam’s republic government.

The family’s travels took them to Bangkok, then Bonn, then Paris where they had family. Lan’s father attempted for a few months to find permanent work in Paris and at his alma mater in Geneva. An uncle and aunt who lived in Montreal then finalized the sponsorship paperwork they had started in March 1975, and the family resettled in Canada.

Corrections and Clarifications to the interview:

– Minute 2:20 My father did his PhD in Geneva from 1960 to 1963, so he went to Geneva in 1960, but I said he went to Geneva in 1963.

– Minute 2:36 In 1958 my mother worked as an English to Vietnamese interpreter for the ICC (International Commission for Supervision and Control in Viet Nam, created at the 1954 Geneva conference on Viet Nam) . I said “human rights commission “ which is not the correct title.

– Minute 13: 1954 Geneva conference but incorrectly said 1963 Geneva conference (When my father decided that communism could not work)

– Minute 45:19, I meant my “daughter” not my sister

– Minute 45:30, I meant working “hard” not “well”