Hanoi (VNA)𒉰 – “As our cars moved towards Sai Gon, we sat sewing national flags to be hung on the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, Education and Youth,” recalled Dinh Le Ha, who was a member of the Education Section under the Central Executive Committee of the People's Revolutionary Party, known as Central Office for South Vietnam in short.

At late March, 1975, the Education Section set up a board to take over education affairs in Sai Gon after liberation. “On April 30, 1975, it was announced that the southern region had been completely liberated, and we burst with joy and excitement,” Ha said. She was still deeply moved when recalling those days. She was part of the group sent by the Education Section to Sai Gon to take over education affairs. On April 28, all preparations were done, and on April 29 morning, Ha and others in the group set out on the road to Sai Gon. On the cars, the cadres sew national flags to be hung on the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, Education and Youth. “The road was bumpy so our needles were often broken, but we didn’t mind because everyone was so happy,” Ha said. Near Cu Chi, the group heard on the news that Duong Van Minh had surrendered, which meant the country had been completely liberated. “We all cheered loudly. Peace has come at last. Now there will be no more bombs, no more ambushes. Our cars sped up on the road amidst the exhilaration of victory.”   Arriving in Cu Chi, the group touched up on their hair and clothes, in order to march to Sai Gon looking their best. When they arrived at the Bay Hien T-junction, the roads were full of people. “People gathered in crowds to welcome the liberation troops. Many curiously touched me and whispered to each other that the communist soldiers were not hairy like monkey, unlike what they heard from the old regime’s propaganda that seven communist soldiers could not break a papaya twig, and that communist soldiers were hairy like monkey because they lived in the jungle,” Ha laughed when recalling the first moments she set her foot in the city of Sai Gon. Ha was only 19 at that time. The joy was so overwhelmed that she could not sleep at that time. Even in several following years, she still could not sleep every time the April 30 anniversary came, as the excitement of victory returned along with the deep memory of her comrades and the days living and working in the revolutionary base. Teacher Do Trong Van also kept many memories about the days he took over the Sai Gon Literature University. “As part of my task at the Education Section is to research and write about education in areas under the old regime, so I read many articles by professors and intellectuals living in those areas, including those working at the Sai Gon Literature University. Therefore, when I talked to them about education in Sai Gon and compared it with education in the north, they were quite surprised,” Van said. Teacher Hoang Tu Hau was assigned to lecture teachers of the old regime about revolutionary education in the north. He said just a poem by soldier-poet Pham Tien Duat had completely changed those teachers’ perspective about the liberation soldiers. “While I was citing the poem Lua Den (Fire in the Lamps), hundreds of teachers at the Go Dau elementary school were in complete silence, but at the end of the poem, they broke into thunderous applause,” Hau said./.