Hoa Lo - "Hanoi Hilton" - Sept 7

On Friday we wanted to venture out of the apartment with the whole family including Chloe and the kids. We were wary because it is so hot and humid and we were all a bit tired. Adam said that the Hoa Lo Prison would be low key and close by so we all agreed it sounded like a plan. We headed for the "long walk" around the corner. I had not realized that Somerset/Hanoi Tower was built on part of the original location of the prison so the museum couldn't be closer.

When Vietnam was a French Colony, this prison opened in 1896, and it was the largest of the French prisons in the north of Vietnam. Thousands of patriots and revolutionary fighters were imprisoned and tortured, both physically and spiritually according to the literature in the museum. The statues in the picture below depict prisoners in leg-irons, and it is said the endured savage treatment by prison guards.

After 1954 (liberation of the north), Hoa Lo became a state prison for criminals. From 1964 to 1973 it was used to detain American pilots during the Vietnam War. It was during this period that Americans gave Hoa Lo the nicname "Hanoi Hilton". Famouns inmates included Douglas "Pete" Peterson, America's first Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and John McCain, now a Senator in the US Senate and a candidate for President of the US.