In addition, millions of *North* Vietnamese left North Vietnam after 1954, when the handwriting was on the wall that the Viet Minh were going to launch an aggressive Communist progrom of land seizures and persecutions.
Even people like Nguyen Kao Ky were originally from the Hanoi area. Catholics left North Vietnam in droves.
Its estimated that 600,000 South Vietnamese folks went for reeducation after 1975. Sentences were in multiples of 3 years, e.g., if your weren't properly compliant after 3 years, you got another 3.
Officers and government officials received longer sentences, 15 years being a norm.
Through wifey, I know lots of guys who got 3 years, and lots who got 15 years. At least two members of her family returned permanently crippled.
Yes I met some of those in South Vietnam they were Catholic.
A Vietnamese lady io met through the Internet told me her parents spent 14 years in re-education camps after the war was over..Her mom survuved and was still alive, her dad died after being released...they lost everything- house, plot of land,everything..
The Montagnards especially were treated terribly by the N. Vietnamese because they had fought so hard against the NVA; many of their villages were wiped out..
bm Vietnmam 66-67