Hoa Lo Prison

Hoa Lo Prison is now located at 1 Hoa Lo Street, Cua Nam Ward, Hanoi City. Originally this was Phu Khanh Hamlet, where people specialized in making earthenware pots, earthen teapots, and various earthen stoves sold throughout the capital, hence the name Hoa Lo.

After capturing Hanoi, the French colonialists chose this central location, demolished Luu Ly Pagoda, Bich Thu Pagoda, and Bich Ha Pagoda, and evicted 48 households of Phu Khanh Hamlet to obtain a site of nearly 13,000 square meters to build one of the most solid prisons in Indochina. Construction began in 1896 with very high requirements: “All metal used had to be imported from France and of the highest quality. Locks, hinges, door bolts, nails, and door corners had to be of the best quality and accepted by the French architect… Building materials were brick: Bricks had to be soaked in water before construction so they would absorb the mortar… Glass panels used had to be glass shipped from France. The glass had to be very clear and free of bubbles.”

Surrounding the prison was a solid 4 m high, 0.5 m thick reinforced wall. The wall surface was studded with broken glass, strung with barbed wire, and electrified with high voltage. At the four corners were four watchtowers (two remain in the surviving section) capable of observing the entire interior and the area around the outside of the prison. Inside the wall was a path for guards to patrol. Previously, the prison had two areas: the common-criminal area and the political-prisoner area. The common-criminal area included a 7-bay building, an 8-bay building, and a repair workshop. The political-prisoner area included camps one, two, and three, a 9-bay camp, rows of cells B and C, the women’s camp, the small blockhouse camp, etc. Each prison building had only one entrance with a closed iron door and one very narrow ventilation opening. The walls were painted gray, with the lower part painted with tar. Some cells had no toilet; excrement buckets were kept right in the room, and feces and urine overflowed with a strong stench. The two rows of cells included 40 cells for holding people sentenced to death (death-sentence cells). Prisoners had both feet shackled and lay on a concrete floor, without clothes, blankets, or mats…

The political prisoners here were cadres, party members, and patriotic people who opposed the French. Those sentenced to 5 years or more were transferred to Son La and Ha Giang prisons; those sentenced to 10 years or more were transferred to Con Dao; those under 5 years and those sentenced to death were held at Hoa Lo. Many Vietnamese patriotic and revolutionary leaders were imprisoned here, such as: Phan Boi Chau, Luong Van Can, Nguyen Quyen, Ho Tung Mau, Nguyen Luong Bang, and five later General Secretaries: Nguyen Van Cu, Truong Chinh, Le Duan, Nguyen Van Linh, and Do Muoi.

Hoa Lo Prison was designed to hold 300 to 400 people, but the number of prisoners here was constantly overcrowded; in one year (1932) they held as many as 1,400 people. The women’s camp was only 270 m2, yet they held up to 300 people.

After the capital was liberated, Hoa Lo was used to temporarily detain people who violated the law. From 1964 to 1973, American pilots captured while bombing the North were also imprisoned here. Among them was Peterson, who later became the first U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. From 1993, to meet the capital’s development requirements (construction of the Hanoi Central Tower), Hoa Lo Prison retained only one-third of its area, 2,432 m2, including artifacts such as the perimeter wall, two watchtowers, the male prisoner cell, the female prisoner cell, the death-row cell area, the dark cell area, various shackles, a guillotine, and relics associated with escapes and the revolutionary activities of patriotic soldiers. The Hoa Lo Prison relic was restored and inaugurated in 1998. Within the relic site, supplementary exhibition rooms are arranged, simulating the imprisonment of political prisoners in various periods from 1931 to 1954. Here are listed the names of political prisoners and images of the steadfast struggle of communist soldiers at the prison. The relic also has two rooms introducing American pilots captured during the U.S. imperialists’ destructive war against the North from 1964 to March 1973. In the relic grounds, outdoors is an incised stone monument area expressing the indomitable spirit of communist soldiers before the brutal enemy.

For nearly half a century an instrument of repression by the French colonialists and their lackeys, Hoa Lo became a “witness” to their monstrous, barbaric crimes. Hoa Lo was also a place that “witnessed” many generations of prisoners and many classes of political prisoners from all northern provinces; “as many patriotic and revolutionary movements erupted, so many classes of fighters representative of those movements were captured by the enemy and held at Hoa Lo Prison.” On January 31, 2011, the President issued a decision to confer the title Hero of the People’s Armed Forces on the collective of revolutionary soldiers captured and imprisoned by the enemy at Hoa Lo Prison (1930–1954).

In 1997, Hoa Lo Prison was ranked a National-level relic by the Ministry of Culture and Information (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism).