Hanoi Hilton: Prison During The Vietnam War

Hanoi Hilton was one of the most well known prison that held prisoners of war during the Vietnam War (Ruanyin). The name of Hanoi Hilton was came from the American GIs. “To the Vietnamese, the prison was known as Hoa Lo” (McMahon, Mary). The name Hanoi Hilton may sound a little luxurious but it actually a place that had full of brutal, torture, dirty, and dark in the history. First of all, the Hoa Lo prison had been around over a hundred years ago. It was constructed or built by the French arounds 1886, when French had the control over Vietnam. Back then, “the French called the prison Maison Centrale because it is a traditional euphemism to denote prisons in France” (Ruanyin). Later, when the North Vietnamese took over the prison, they renamed it to Hoa Lo prison. The name of Hoa Lo basically translated as “Hell’s hole” or “Fiery
The way they came up with the name for Hoa Lo prison is based on the name of street the prison was located at. “Due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street from pre-colonial times” the name of Hoa Lo street was created (Ruanyin). The height of the prison walls are 20 feet tall, the thickness was 4-foot, topped with barbed wire and broken glass, caused escape almost impossible for anyone who were housed in Hoa Lo prison (Tucker, Spencer). Since men were not able to escape the Hell’s hole, they spent a lot of times being punished or tortured in the prison. Before the Vietnam War, the purpose of Hoa Lo prison “was intended to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution” (Ruanyin). During the Vietnam War, the Hoa Lo prison was used for house the prisoners of war or known as POWs, American pilots who were shot down and captured by the North