Folder 56 Library Stories     HUE SR 872 - 885 pp. 5 - 11

What was the experience of civilians?

Behind them buildings were ravaged by fires which the Communists had set to delay the advancing troops. Only a few days before Tran Hung Gow Street had been a thriving business center in the city. Now it lay in smoldering rubble…. Human anguish and suffering were the only gifts from the Communists to the people of Hue on the day of the Tet lunar New Year… Frightened and weeping, the aged and weak did their best to carry their heavy belongings in their flight from the city. Hundreds of innocent victims of the Communist attack had to be buried in hurriedly dug graves near the main emergency refugee center. The children, many of them orphans, wept in strange surroundings beside the fresh graves….Tons of food, clothing, and medicine were brought and distributed to the refugees. The old and young alike deeply appreciated the assistance provided during their time of need… the ancient city of Hue had been the scene of many conflicts during past centuries. Never before had it suffered such widespread destruction. The thousands of dead, the orphaned, the homeless, and the terrible destruction in the city stand as mute evidence of the violence Communist North Viet Nam and the Viet Cong brought to the people of South Viet Nam on their most sacred day…... Thousands of people stand in horror-struck silence. Mothers crying for their dead sons, wives their husbands, children their parents. With each body found, the crowd moves closer to try to identify the corpse amongst sorrowful tear, cries and repugnant odor of death covering the scene….the atmosphere of death covers a whole nation whose sole aspiration is to live in peace but still has to fight an enemy who uses for a weapon blind massacre…. Once again the page of history has been stained by a cruel, bloody and tearful communist atrocity. Long afterward the people will tremble and curse the murderers when this page is recalled…