Remembrance: War veteran Carl W. Greifzu (right) holds the original English version of a diary written by war martyr Đặng Thùy Trâm to military colonel and writer Đặng Vương Hưng. Photo baomoi.com

Viet Nam News

HCM CITY – The HCM City-based War Remnants Museum has just received the original English version of a diary written by war martyr Dr Đặng Thùy Trâm, who worked on the battlefield as surgeon in a central province of Việt Nam during the American war.

Carl W. Greifzu, a veteran who also joined the American war,had kept the diary since September 1971. He and his Vietnamese wife Trần Thị Kim Dung had translated the diary into English 30 years ago.

Last March, the couple visited Việt Nam and handed the translated version to Vietnamese military colonel and writer Đặng Vương Hưng and returned the diary to Trâm’s family.

The diary was subsequently printed in large numbers and hailed as a “phenomenon” of domestic society.

Receiving the typed version of the translated diary, Huỳnh Ngọc Vân, director of the museum, called it a valuable object for the museum.

Trâm, born in Huế in 1942, trained in Ha Noi to become a medical doctor, died on June 22, 1970, in Đức Phổ, Quảng Ngãi Province while working in a remote clinic.

Her wartime diary, which chronicles the last two years of her life, attracted international attention following its publication in 2005.

The diary has been translated and published in at least 16 different languages. – VNS