Hỏa Lò Prison was named after the village that it replaced, though the official, French colonial name was Maison Centrale. The prison was one of the most impenetrable in Indochina and was used by the French colonists in Vietnam to incarcerate and execute political prisoners. The French regime’s treatment of prisoners was brutal and particularly sadistic toward prisoners sentenced to death or in solitary confinement, where they remained in the dark, chained to pallets 24/7, and were not released even for toilet or eating. While the French law dictated 190 days to appeal a death sentence, the French colonialists often executed prisoners within three days, and executions were carried out publicly to break the spirit of political dissenters. The prison was used for half a century before the Vietnamese successfully expelled the French and closed Maison Centrale.
The original prison doors
Hỏa Lò Prison was later used by North Vietnam to incarcerate U.S. Prisoners of War, and was ironically known to POWs as the Hanoi Hilton. Most of the information regarding the American prisoners was propaganda attesting to how well they were treated and showcasing strangely glum looking American prisoners sitting among Christmas decorations or enjoying cigarettes. There was not a single word mentioning the torture that the POWs experienced.
Hỏa Lò Prison was thankfully demolished in 1990 with the gate house kept to function as a museum. Today you can tour several of the cells to view the truly appalling conditions and experience some of the horrors of justice miscarried.
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