Those Who Stayed - by Claudia Krich (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This memoir is based on the detailed journal Claudia Krich, a U.S. aid worker, kept during the North Vietnamese capture of Saigon in 1975. A co-director of an American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) humanitarian program, Krich was one of only three American women to remain in Saigon after the U.S. withdrawal, and readers glean insights into what happened in Saigon in the first days and months after the Americans had left Saigon and the North Vietnamese swiftly established their regime. Her narrative is supplemented by historical and personal reflections penned by American and Vietnamese contemporaries"--

Book Synopsis

An American Eyewitness in Vietnam at the End of War and Beginning of Peace

By the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975, almost all Americans and thousands of terrified Vietnamese had left Saigon, fearing the bloodbath predicted by many if the Communists took over. But Claudia Krich and a few other humanitarian aid volunteers chose not to leave. They had no weapons, no cement barriers, no bomb shelter, and no safety, but they were determined to remain in Vietnam to see what happened next.

Those Who Stayed is Claudia Krich's personal firsthand account of the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the beginning of the new Provisional Revolutionary Government. Her vivid impressions of those intense, historic days emerge primarily from her journal, capturing the uncertainty, fear, and excitement as the North Vietnamese soldiers arrived. She intertwines personal, sometimes heartbreaking episodes with major historic events.

Several short pieces by others with unusual firsthand knowledge enliven and contextualize the book. Fascinating and unique, engaging and entertaining, Those Who Stayed is the extraordinary story of an adventurous young woman in the right place at the right time to chronicle a pivotal moment in history.

Review Quotes

Krich and her AFSC colleagues were among the very few Americans or Westerners who were in Saigon to witness these events. Her book is especially valuable because she was fluent in Vietnamese and interacted with a wide variety of people, including soldiers of the conquering army.. . .She recounts the scary final days of the war and frustrating dealings with newly installed and often disorganized government officials. . . .She also conveys the joys and fears of ordinary Saigonese as they face a new world: one without war and a corrupt regime but with an unknown new administration. It's a fascinating story that is told engagingly and entertainingly.

--Friends Journal

A useful and long overdue corrective to the historical record. And it's a good read.--LA Progressive

In a landscape of Vietnam War literature saturated with accounts of U.S. servicemen, Krich offers a fresh account of life on the ground in Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon that handily counters popular U.S. understandings of those events.--Library Journal

Nearly fifty years have passed, and now there is a book that tells what happened at that historic moment in Việt Nam back in April 1975. It was a moment of transition that Heaven granted to the Vietnamese. The media has long had images of Sài Gòn and Đà Nẵng, while Quảng Ngãi and the countryside remained a mystery. Thanks to Claudia Krich's Those Who Stayed that mystery has been solved. For those interested in Vietnamese history, this is a must-read.--Le Ly Hayslip, humanitarian and author of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places

About the Author

Claudia Krich was codirector of the American Friends Service Committee medical relief program in Vietnam from early 1973 until July 1975.