Hỏa Lò Prison
At Hỏa Lò Prison in Hanoi, a small force of guards and USAF prisoners held the complex as infected flooded the surrounding streets. Former enemies fought side by side, turning the prison into a defensive stronghold to delay the infected. With no hope of escape, they maintained their positions until the prison went silent.
Internal name: mcv_prison.bsp
-
Mapicon -
Minimap -
Minimap
History
Hỏa Lò Prison was built by the French colonial authorities in Hanoi in 1896 and was known in French as Maison Centrale. It was constructed on land in the Hỏa Lò area, whose name referred to the local trade in stoves and kilns. From the beginning, the prison was intended to hold Vietnamese prisoners, especially political prisoners and anti-colonial activists.
During the French colonial period, Hỏa Lò became known for harsh conditions. Prisoners were held in overcrowded cells and subjected to shackling, punishment cells, hard labor, and poor sanitation. The prison also became associated with the repression of Vietnamese nationalist and revolutionary movements in the early twentieth century. Because so many anti-colonial prisoners passed through it, Hỏa Lò later became an important symbol of French colonial rule in Vietnam.
After the end of French rule in northern Vietnam in 1954, the prison remained in use under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, part of Hỏa Lò was used to hold captured American pilots. American prisoners of war gave it the nickname Hanoi Hilton. This later period is the one most familiar in American accounts, but the prison's longer history began under French colonial rule.
Most of the original prison complex was demolished in the 1990s. A preserved section remains today as the Hỏa Lò Prison Relic museum in Hanoi. The surviving site presents the prison as both a colonial-era place of confinement and a later wartime prison.
Sources
- Hoa Lo Prison Relic, The process of the prison establishment — https://hoalo.vn/EN/Articles/49/290/the-process-of-the-prison-establishment.html
- Hoa Lo Prison Relic, Imprisoned Regulations Political Prison — https://hoalo.vn/EN/Articles/49/291/imprisoned-regulations-political-prison.html
- Hoa Lo Prison Relic, Introductions on Hoa Lo Prison Relic — https://hoalo.vn/EN/Articles/53/286/About-us.html
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Hoa Lo Prison — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hoa-Lo-Prison