Growing up with bombs and bullets of war, the first lessons of Vietnamese children during wartime were to dig shelters, trenches, weave straw hats to go to school, raise chickens as a small project, make Truong Son sticks to give to seniors going to war...
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| The Children in Wartime photo exhibition introduces nearly 100 photos capturing the daily life, study and work of Vietnamese children during the resistance war. The photos are displayed at the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam in the Children's Book Fair on June 1 organized by Hanoi City. |
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| When war broke out, the first lesson for students was to dig shelters, trenches, and weave straw hats to go to school. To ensure safety, schools dispersed classes to many locations, each with a system of trenches to avoid bombs and bullets. |
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| Students and children from the city were evacuated to the countryside. Without electricity, without their parents around… the children gradually learned to adapt to life during wartime. |
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| Classes were held everywhere, in the cooperative yard, in people's houses... The school was destroyed by bombs but that did not stop the students from going to class. Grade 3 was in this corner, grade 5 was in that corner, separated by a wall that collapsed due to the pressure of the bombs. |
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| In the midst of bombs and bullets, "child prodigies" like Nguyen Ngoc Ky, Dang Thai Son, and Tran Dang Khoa grew up one after another. Nguyen Ngoc Ky (Hai Hau, Nam Dinh) had his arms paralyzed since childhood, so he used his legs to practice writing instead of his hands. A good student and good poet, Nguyen Ngoc Ky later graduated from the Faculty of Literature, University of General Sciences and became a teacher for thousands of excellent students in his hometown. |
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| The attentive faces of students while listening to lectures. Painter Luong Xuan Doan once felt, "Those days, those times were difficult. I longed to look back at my childhood innocence in the beautiful faces like clear mirrors in each photo." |
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| In addition to their study duties, wartime children also contributed significantly to the resistance war with movements such as Small Plans, Thousand Good Deeds... In the photo are children making Truong Son sticks to give to soldiers preparing to leave for military service. |
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| Teachers and students of Hoa Loc Secondary School (Hau Loc, Thanh Hoa) dig trenches and build earthen ramparts around the classroom. |
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| Implement small-scale planning movement, raise chickens to sell to cooperatives. |
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| Bombs and bullets could not drown out the laughter of children running and playing on the village streets in Dong Anh (Hanoi). On a high watchtower built on the top of a tree, militiamen were on duty, ready to give timely warnings when planes were approaching. |
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| Students smile next to an A-shaped bunker - a type of bunker built from straw and soil, quite sturdy to avoid bombs. |
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| Mid-Autumn Festival during wartime was still full of star lanterns and candy for children. |
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| In fierce war zones such as the Central Highlands front, the Southeast front... people and resistance soldiers still live and go to school. The photo captures a singing lesson of children in the Central Highlands. |
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| A makeshift classroom in Kinh Hang hamlet, Khanh Hung commune (Tran Van Thoi, Ca Mau) in 1970 - when the war was at its fiercest. Looking at old photos, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nhan, a retired literature teacher in Hanoi, recalls the day when American bombs were dropped on Kham Thien street, and she and her sister had to evacuate to Ha Bac (present-day Bac Giang, Bac Ninh). "The children who grew up in the bombs and bullets of that day are probably now almost all grandparents. We grew up like young shoots in the wind and storm, and hardships could not crush us. Children today should also know and look at these photos again. Mentioning them is not to compare which era was more difficult, but to see that Vietnamese children are the same in all eras, always overcoming difficulties and full of optimism," she said. The exhibition will last until June 5. |
According to VNE
