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Alejandra Arévalo Martínez

Alejandra Arévalo

The forced Oblivion


Between 1939 and 1942 around 20,000 Vietnamese men were forcibly transported from the port of Haiphong in Indochina to the costs of Marseille to work as unskilled laborers in the French armament industry and rice fields. This project seeks to highlight the historical memory of two nations, and likewise to restore the family memory of the descendants of these workers.

The lives of these men happen between two wars and two continents. This work is an account of how the French colonial power forced thousands to work and live in degrading conditions under the pretext of a colonial racial discourse. These 20.000 stories began with a forced migration that later turned into a forced exile.



They are 20,000 stories of lives that were minimized, forgotten, and hidden by the perpetrators and the workers themselves. For these men’s families, the circumstances of their lives remain partially unknown because of the trauma of living and working in such degrading conditions under a racist colonial power.

With the order of the 29th of August 1939 the Indigenous, North African and Colonial Manpower Service (MOI) sets the duty to give one son above 18 years old from each Indochinese family. Most of the recruited men were from the Annam, the middle part of Vietnam, from the protectorate of Tonkin in the north and in a smaller amount from Conchinchina in the south. The first ship to reach the shores of Marseille, was the Yang-Tsé, transporting 1394 men. Upon their arrival in France, they were first interned in the building that is now used as Les Baumettes prison. Claude Trinh sitting on a bench near his house. His father, Trinh Xuân Bô, arrived in Arles in 1940 from the Annam. He was designated as an interpreter as he had a fairly good level of French. At Trinh Xuân Bô’s funeral, Claude and his brothers became aware of the real story of his father’s arrival in France. Former workers told them the truth. Until 1940 Vietnamese workers were employed mostly in the National Defense Industry all over the country. Mazargue, Marseille, a former Vietnamese worker billeting. On the left side middle part, Claude marches, leading his unit in the French Army. His French grandmother used to tell him that if he joined the army, people would respect him. Claude’s father left a letter written in Vietnamese. It said: “Dear Dad, how are my brothers Richard, Claude and Fabrice.” In 2000, the Thrin brothers went to Vietnam to meet his brother, Trinh Duc Hoang. Trinh Duc Hoang first on the left, and his Family in Vietnam. Mazargue, Marseille, a former Vietnamese worker billeting. Claude Trinh. Following the German Invation in June 1940 in the north of France, the Vietnamese workers in this area were redistributed to the south. At this point, the MOI (the Indigenous, North African, and Colonial Manpower Service) proposes to French private companies to lease the labor of the around 15.000 workers who were confined in French territory. The MOI received the payments directly without distributing the corresponding wages to the workers. Rice Museum, Arles. Repatriation at the end of their colonial duties was the promise given to the Vietnamese workers, only it was not kept. The priority for the French Government was to send more French troops to Indochina for the military reconquest of the colony. Michelle Vu Van is the daughter of Suong Vu Van. He arrived in France in 1939 to work in the rice fields in the south of France, and later he was transferred to the east of the country to work in the coal mines. Maizières-les-Metz was a working-class neighborhood where many Vietnamese workers were placed to work in the coal mines of the area. Some of the families still live here. Émilie poses with the blanket given to her grandfather Kiem Tran Van upon his arrival in Marseille. Kiem came to France at the age 28 and worked in shrapnel manufacturing before working in the coal mines and settling his family in the East of France. A stone brought from Vietnam by Xavier Phan Dinh (son of Phan Dhin, another Vietnamese worker) and gifted to the Tran Van family. In 1949, Kiem began the paperwork process for repatriation. Yet, it was not until 1957 that he received approval, but the agreement did not include his family. On July 16, 1957, he officially declined the French government’s offer of repatriation. Official letter of Kiem’s repatriation. The recruited men ranged in age from 18 to 30 when they were enlisted, and at the time of their military dischargement, they were between 54 and 66 years old. Vietnamese workers in one of the billetings in Marseille around 1940. Photo courtesy Tran Van family.



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The forced Oblivion


A Cloud above me

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Sound of an echo

Guardavecinos


© Alejandra Arévalo 2026