Hoa Lo Prison (by Jacob)

Today we went to a prison called Hoa Lo. It was built in 1896 by the French, because at that time the French had colonized Hanoi. It was built because the Vietnamese people were tring to rebel against the French government. It was later used for the American P.O.W.s in the Vietnam War.

The French used the prison from about 1900 to about 1955. The prison you see now is about a fifth the size it was before, because they built big buildings over the other part of the prison. There were rooms inside the prison where people's legs were locked into a bar and they just sit and can't move. There is also a dungeon for people that had broken the prison rules. The prisoners' legs were also strapped in just like the other area but the worst part is that the floor in the cages are sloped so if they tried to lay down the blood rushed to their heads. Later on in the prison museum they showed a way people die at the prison. The way they do it makes me want to vomit, it was called the guillotine. The way it works is that they lay someone down and put the prisoner's head through the hole, then the guards brought down a blade and cut the person's head off.  The head would fall into a bucket!

Later on in a different part of the museum they talked about what the prison was used for during the Vietnam War. The prison held US Air Force pilots that were shot down by North Vietnam. The most famous Air Force pilot that was kept in the prison was Jon McCain after he got shot down and crashed into Truc Bach Lake, in Hanoi. One thing that was interesting was the way they portrayed prison life.  The museum showed us how much fun it was to be there. For example, they showed the prisoners playing volleyball, basketball, and pool, but we know that is not really what life was like there.  After we left the museum, we had a big talk on how differently the Vietnamese portray prison life than the Americans who were soldiers there describe it, which was awful and full of torture!