Built in stages between 1886 and 1901 in downtown Hanoi by the French, Hỏa Lò Prison – translated as ‘fiery furnace’ – was a place of incomprehensible brutality. Prisoners were shackled by one leg, unable to walk or even stand up; many were kept in tiny, damp, dark and filthy solitary confinement cells and were subject to arbitrary physical and mental abuse including torture and deprivation of basic human rights. Nicknamed the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ during the Vietnam War, some 600 US Prisoners of War were kept at Hỏa Lò between August 1964 until 1973, including future Republican presidential nominee John McCain.
