Former French school turned into a re-education camp.
After the Paris peace accord was signed on January 27, 1973, the U.S. made it's
final troop withdrawal in the following weeks. Not long after the Americans
were finally out of the picture, the North resumed its offensive on the South.
Victory after victory came along with rapid advances. The war officially ended
on April 30, 1975, when communist tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential
Palace in Saigon. The communists had finally united all of Vietnam.
Former French school turned into a re-education camp.
Almost all of America's South Vietnamese allies were abandoned and left to the mercy of their new communist rulers. Schools all over the South were quickly converted into re-education camps. Soldiers and sympathizers from the losing side were sent to learn the new regime's doctrine.
The tiger cages.
Veterans of the South Vietnamese army and survivors of the re-education camps had similar horror stories to tell. "The North put us into these schools to learn the new way. They said our lives meant nothing to them and several people in the camp were executed every week to teach us a lesson. Just looking at a guard the wrong way could lead to a lock-up in the tiger cages, which may be worse than death. We kept our mouths shut, swore allegiance to the new government, and were allowed to return to our families after about a year."
