Nothing prepares you for how creepy Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi, Vietnam can be. A visit to the “Hanoi Hilton” can inspire sadness, disgust and, depending on its policy, different flavors of outrage.
Forget the “Hanoi Hilton” described in gory detail by survivors like John McCain and Robinson Risner, or movies like the Hanoi Hilton . Prison screens focus on the suffering of the Vietnamese revolutionaries who were confined (and sometimes executed) here when the French were the masters of Vietnam in the early part of the 20th century.
When American POWs show up, they present themselves as clean-shaven, well-treated, and making peace with their captors, all in a single room silently supervised by John McCain’s captured flight suit.
However, Hoa Lo Prison is worth visiting, if only to experience the colonial experience as the Vietnamese see fit to tell it, and to divine the stories untold by the silent walls and shackles on prominent display. Walking through the current Hanoi Hilton
What you see of the current Hoa Lo prison is actually only the small southern section of the entire prison complex in the past; Most of the prison was demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for the Towers of Hanoi, a glittering office and hotel complex so steeped in capitalism it would have horrified Ho Chi Minh.
The current compound can be entered through the gate on Hoa Lo Street, known to Vietnamese inmates as “the mouth of the monster.” This door is adorned with the words Maison Centrale , or “central house,” a common French euphemism for city jails. (The prison in Conakry, Guinea is still known as Maison Centrale to this day.)
An illustrated walking tour of Hoa Lo Prison can be read online.
Check in at the Hanoi Hilton
Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French between 1886 and 1901, with a further renovation in 1913. French colonial administrators thought of making an example of Vietnamese agitators for independence, and what better way to do so than to establish a prison right in the middle of the city?
A stay at the Hanoi Hilton was not a picnic. From day one, Hoa Lo was terribly overcrowded, while its maximum capacity was 600 prisoners, more than 2,000 were confined within its walls in 1954.
The prisoners in Hoa Lo were chained to the ground and the guards often beat them. The palisade “E” (pictured above) housed political prisoners, handcuffed and arranged in two rows. A latrine stands at one end of the stockade, within sight of other prisoners.
The executions were carried out in Hoa Lo prison via a mobile guillotine, which is still near the prison’s death row.
Without realizing it, the French had built an incubator for revolution in Hoa Lo. Hoa Lo prisoners learned about communism by word of mouth, and the notes were handed out and written in invisible ink made from medical supplies. At least five future general secretaries of the Vietnamese Communist Party would spend their formative years in Hoa Lo prison.
American prisoners of war at the Hanoi Hilton
As US foreign policy turned to Indochina, the looming war between the two halves of a newly independent Vietnam would transform Hoa Lo prison once again.
The Hanoi-based communist government of North Vietnam intended to keep Hoa Lo prison as a reminder of French brutality. But a growing number of American POWs called for a change in plans.
In today’s Hoa Lo Prison, the experience of American prisoners of war in Hoa Lo Prison is presented, whitewashed , actually, in two displays made to look like comfortable barracks. However, in the past, this area was the dreaded “blue room”, where new prisoners were interrogated and tortured if they did not comply. Former POW Julius Jayroe recounts his first experience in the Blue Room:
“I was transported to Hanoi and introduced to the Knobby Blue Room in the New Guy Village section of the infamous Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison). The rest of that night, the next day and until the following night, he suffered torture (heavy fists, ropes, beatings) for refusing to give information beyond name, rank, sn and dob «.
Nothing in the current Blue Room attests to the torture inflicted within its walls; Instead, lighthearted footage shows cleaned-up POWs making Christmas dinner, along with displays of the prisoners’ sanitized personal effects.
Hanoi Hilton Reality Told Elsewhere
You will have to obtain the American side of Hoa Lo Prison from books written by former guests of the Hanoi Hilton. The following prisoners of war in Hoa Lo eventually wrote books recounting their experiences.
Admiral James Stockdale remained in solitary confinement while at Hoa Lo; he injured himself to prevent the Vietnamese from using him as a propaganda tool. After its launch in 1973, the Admiral launched A Vietnam Experience: Ten Years of Reflection, recounting his years at the Hanoi Hilton.
Brigadier General Robinson Risner was the highest ranking POW in Hoa Lo Prison. Risner eventually released an autobiography, The Passing of the Night: My Seven Years as a Prisoner of the North Vietnamese , which describes his experiences as a prisoner of war in Hoa Lo.
Senator and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain was shot down in 1967 and confined to Hoa Lo from 1967 to 1973. His shock and torture injuries were so severe that he was not expected to live, but he was recovered to health. his fellow prisoners of war. Later, McCain recounted his Hoa Lo experience in his book Faith of My Fathers .
The experience of American prisoners of war in Hoa Lo prison inspired the film The Hanoi Hilton, which used interviews with former prisoners of war as sources for the bloody torture sequences filmed in the film.
How to get to the Hanoi Hilton
The easiest way to get to Hoa Lo Prison is by taxi: 1 Pho Hoa Lo is right on the corner of Pho Ha Ba Trung, south of Hoan Kiem Lake, on the edge of the French Quarter. Read about transportation in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The prison is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., every day of the week, with a lunch break from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
