Hỏa Lò Prison, Hanoi, Vietnam

This is a bad place, where bad people did bad things. Over the years, who was on what side changed, but the bottom line is that many people were tortured, starved, and killed here. The name Hỏa Lò, commonly translated as "fiery furnace" or even "Hell's hole”. It was a prison in Hanoi originally used by the French colonists in Indochina for political prisoners, and later by North Vietnam for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War, the sarcastically named Hanoi Hilton.

The prison was built in Hanoi by the French, in the mid-19th century, when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. The French called the prison Maison Centrale, 'Central House', which is still the designation of prisons for dangerous or long sentence detainees in France. It was located near Hanoi's French Quarter. It was intended to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution. The guillotine is on display. Following Operation Homecoming, the prison was used to incarcerate Vietnamese dissidents and other political prisoners, including the poet Nguyễn Chí Thiện. The prison was demolished during the 1990s, although its gatehouse remains a museum.