The book by Kostas Sarantidis – Nguyen Van Lap

The book was translated from the memoirs and diaries of Kostas Sarantidis – Nguyen Van Lap, a Greek who fought alongside the Vietnamese people for many years and was deeply attached to Vietnam as his second homeland.

Asso. Prof Vu Trong Lam, Director and Editor-in-Chief of the publishing house, said the book is a spiritual gift to fraternal Greek people and generations of Vietnamese and Greek people who have made significant contributions to establishing, maintaining and developing the special solidarity and friendship between Vietnam and Greece.
Born in 1927, Kostas Sarantidis - Nguyen Van Lap was was sent to Vietnam as a soldier in the French army in February 1946.  Witnessing the French colonialists’ barbaric crimes against Vietnamese people and realizing the just nature of the fight against France, in June 1946, he fled from the French army to a liberated area in Binh Thuan province and joined the Viet Minh force in the resistance war. Since then, he became a friend and a comrade of Vietnamese people who called him by the name Kostas Nguyen Van Lap.

He was honored by the Vietnamese Party and State several times, including the first-class Feat Order, the Friendship Order, the third-class Victory Order, and the second-class Resistance Order. In particular, he was granted the Vietnamese nationality in 2010 and then the "Hero of the People’s Armed Forces" title in 2013, becoming the first and only foreigner to be bestowed with this title so far.