Late President Ho Chi Minh in the hearts of int’l friends

Hanoi (VNA) – Late President Ho Chi Minh was not only a beloved leader of the Vietnamese people, but his life and career also left good impressions on many international friends and won their hearts.

Indian journalist Sandip Hor, Vice President of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association in Australia, said he came to know Ho Chi Minh in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when his hometown - Kolkata city in India’s West Bengal state - witnessed demonstrations in support of the fight against the US and for national reunification in Vietnam. Since then, the great leader of Vietnam has been the one he always admires.

Talking to Vietnam News Agency, Hor recounted that in Kolkata, called Calcutta then, people went on many marches protesting the war and supporting the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). As protestors advocated President Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideals, many posters featuring images of the Vietnamese leader were placed along local streets.

Those posters were the first images of Ho Chi Minh that he knew, he said, noting that also at that time, the West Bengal administration named a central street in Calcutta capital after the leader who was a source of inspiration for the local liberation movement from 1945.

It was not until 2006 that Sandip Hor had a chance to come to Vietnam for the first time. During this trip, like many other foreign visitors to the country, he paid tribute to Ho Chi Minh at the mausoleum and the stilt house where the late leader used to live in.

The journalist has re-visited Vietnam many times since then, and through those trips, he has gained even better understanding of the country’s history as well as Ho Chi Minh, he added.

Anjuska Weil, Chairwoman of the Switzerland - Vietnam Friendship Association and Honorary President of the Swiss Party of Labour, said her youth in the 1960s was marked with anti-war activities in support of Vietnam, along with the poem collection “Prison Dairy” by Ho Chi Minh that she was given at the age of 17 by her mother.

Those poems greatly impressed her and since then, she invested efforts in learning about Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam, Weil said, noting that the more she learned, the more she was impressed with his dignity and ideology.

Her decision to become a member of the Swiss Party of Labour was closely linked with Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, she added.

She expressed her hope that the late President’s dignity, ideology, and brilliant revolutionary career will become known more among young people in the West.

Meanwhile, Wang Feng, daughter of late journalist Wang Weizhen - former head of the Xinhua News Agency’s bureau in Hanoi from 1955 to 1960, was the small girl in the photo with President Ho Chi Minh taken on May 20, 1957 by Mai Nam.

The picture was taken when she, called Wang Xiaohong then, followed her parents who came to the Gia Lam airfield to cover Soviet Union Marshall Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov’s visit to Vietnam.

The 70-year-old recalled that she was eager to meet Vietnamese heroes after hearing stories about them told by her father and other Xinhua correspondents who interviewed them. She was very happy to meet the President of Vietnam, and that moment is still fresh in her mind today.

After Ho Chi Minh passed away in 1969, she has come back to Vietnam four times. She plans to re-visit the country and pay homage to the late leader again after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, Wang said, voicing the wish that Vietnam - her second home - will continue developing.

Vietnam is marking the 132nd birth anniversary of Ho Chi Minh (May 19, 1890 - 2022)./.