This article is taken from Le
Figaro Histoire
“French Indochina, from the conquest to Diên Bien Phu”
. Discover in this issue the history of France's Asian century.
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Figaro Histoire
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If we are alive, it is thanks to the atomic bomb. »
This surprising phrase is a true leitmotif, pronounced in all families who experienced the Japanese occupation in Indochina. Even today, those who were children then continue to hammer it through their testimonies. In fact, by accelerating the capitulation of Japan, the nuclear explosions put an end to the nightmare experienced by the 40,000 people who made up the colonial society of Indochina. Parked in camps or ghettos, on the run in the bush, hungry, at the mercy of the
Kempeitaï,
the sinister military gendarmerie nicknamed the “Japanese Gestapo”, these men and women saw each other…