Lê Văn Tám Park Explained

Le Van Tam Park
Công viên Lê Văn Tám
Type:Urban park
Location:Da Kao Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Module:
Mạc Đĩnh Chi Cemetery
Map Type:Vietnam
Country:Vietnam
Location:Ho Chi Minh City
Type:memorial
Findagraveid:1986515
Embedded:
Wikidata:yes
Zoom:16
Marker:religious

Le Van Tam Park (Vietnamese: Công viên Lê Văn Tám), previously known as Mạc Đĩnh Chi Cemetery, is a park in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.[1] [2] It formerly was a large and prestigious French colonial cemetery in South Vietnam, located near the US Embassy, Saigon (now is Consulate General of the United States, Ho Chi Minh City). The cemetery had a wooded, bucolic setting, surrounded by a tall concrete wall, with a gated entrance on Hai Ba Trung Street. It originated as the burial ground for those killed during the 1859 battle for the Gia Dinh Citadel.[3]

The cemetery was built by the French and had a European style confined within a quiet environment, giving it an air of simplicity, eeriness, and majesty. Small winding roads, lined with eucalyptus trees interspersed with straight roads, gave access to all corners of the cemetery. Eight-foot, bone white concrete walls enclosed it all around and gave it an air of isolation and solemnity in the middle of the noisy neighborhood. There were magnificent mausoleums, eight to ten feet high and six to eight feet wide, erected by bereaved families to commemorate their deceased. Others were simple tombstones, but no less impressive, with a block of stone marking the gallant deeds of the beloved person. It was by far the largest, cleanest and best-kept cemetery in Saigon.

Burial there was reserved for French governors and colonial officials, high-ranking Vietnamese politicians, generals, former war heroes, celebrities and prominent members of the South Vietnamese society. In 1955 it was named Mac Dinh Chi, after the renowned ancient Vietnamese scholar and diplomat Mạc Đĩnh Chi (1280–1350).[3] South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were interred there in unmarked graves following their assassinations.[4] The famous French correspondent for Time and Newsweek magazines François Sully[4] and the American missionary Grace Cadman[5] were also buried there.

In the early 1980s, Vietnam's communist government declared the cemetery a corrupt reminder of the past. In 1983 the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee passed a resolution to abolish the cemetery, and ordered all remains to be exhumed and removed. Family members were given two months to claim their loved ones. Then the mausoleums and tombstones were bulldozed to the ground to create a children's park and playground.[4] [6] [7]

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: VnExpress . Locals haunted by ghosts of Saigon cemetery – VnExpress International . 2022-09-21 . VnExpress International – Latest news, business, travel and analysis from Vietnam . en.
  2. Web site: Lê Văn Tám Park – The Former Massiges Cemetery – Part I Saigoneer . 2022-09-21 . saigoneer.com . en-gb.
  3. Web site: Streets of Saigon . 2009-03-07 . https://web.archive.org/web/20020815183904/http://www.saigontoday.net/HTML/Streets_of_Saigon/mac_dinh_chi.htm . 2002-08-15 . dead .
  4. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/27/opinion/edjones.php Tet and remembrance of the dead
  5. Web site: Missionaries William and Grace Cadman . 2009-03-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20111006185509/http://hazenberg.noordelingen.nl/gracecadman.htm . 2011-10-06 . dead .
  6. https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DC1238F933A15756C0A962958260 Vietnamese Also Extending The Search for Their M.I.A.'s
  7. http://www.vietnamjournal.org/article.php?sid=58 In The Age of Globalization, Even the Dead Travel