Trần Thị Lý
Trần Thị Lý (née Trần Thị Nhâm, 30 December 1933 in Điện Quang, Điện Bàn District, Quảng Nam – 20 November 1992 in Đà Nẵng) was a Vietnamese communist party member,[1] who was imprisoned and tortured in Saigon.[2][3] She is the granddaughter of Trần Cao Vân.[4]
The Nguyễn Văn Trỗi – Trần Thị Lý Bridge is named after her and a fellow revolutionary, Nguyễn Văn Trỗi.
Since 1956, Lý worked as a liaison officer for the People's Army of Vietnam in Điện Bàn but the same year, she was arrested on her commute to work by the South Vietnamese. After being tortured for 2 years and being left for dead by her captors, she was flown to the Vietnam – Soviet Friendship Hospital in Hanoi, weighing just 26 kilograms (57 lb), having 42 wounds across her body, with cut nipples and bleeding genitals.[4]
In 1992 she was awarded the Hero of the People's Armed Forces medal and died shortly after. She left behind her adopted daughter Thùy Linh and her husband Tuấn.[4]
References
- Vietnam, patrie retrouvée - Page 104 Khăć Viện Nguyêñ - 1977 "Une figure émerge au milieu de tous ces souvenirs : Tran Thi Ly, cette jeune fille du Quang Nam torturée pendant de longs mois, criant à une camarade qui gémissait sous les coups des tortionnaires à côté d'elle" (A figure emerged from the midst of all those memories: Tran Thi Ly, that young Quang Nam girl tortured for months on end, calling out to a comrade who was groaning under the blows of the torturers beside her".)
- Women of Viet Nam no 1 - Page 2 Hội Liên hiêp phu nũ Viêt Nam - 1991 "Mrs Tran Thi Ly and her husband Nguyen Viet Juan. Tran Thi Ly was a heroine of the Vietnamese resistance to foreign aggression. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, her name was a household word throughout the country. The story of how she stood up to her torturers in the jails of the Saigon regime moved the entire people, young and old. When fellow-militants managed to get her out of their clutches and take her to North for medical care, her body bore no fewer than forty-one wounds. Her courage and energy inspired many a writer and painter. But the public knew little about her personal life. Yet, it was a no less inspiring side of her personality, and that of someone very close and dear to her, her husband. .."
- Service, United States Foreign Broadcast Information (1958). Daily Report: Foreign Radio Broadcasts.
- dantri.com.vn. "Những điều chưa biết về nữ anh hùng Trần Thị Lý". Báo điện tử Dân Trí (in Vietnamese). Retrieved 2020-11-20.