The Hoa Lo Prison (Vietnamese: Hỏa Lò) which was later referred to by American prisoners of war (POWs) as the “Hanoi Hilton,” was a prison used by the French colonial Indochina authorities for political prisoners and later by the North Vietnamese for American POWs during the Vietnam War.
The prison itself was built by the French in stages from 1886–1889 to 1898 to 1901. The French called the prison Maison Centrale or Central House, a traditional euphemism that denotes prisons in France. However, the Vietnamese name Hoa Lo can be translated as “fiery furnace” or “hell’s hole” or it can mean “stove.” This name actually originated from the street named phố Hỏa Lò where there was a concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves during pre-colonial and colonial times.
The prison was built to hold Vietnamese prisoners, especially political prisoners who were agitating for Indochina’s independence. A 1913 renovation expanded its capacity from 460 inmates to 600 but it would remain overcrowded. In fact, the prison would often hold some 730 prisoners on any given day in 1916 and this figure which would rise to 895 in 1922 and 1,430 in 1933. By 1954 at the end of the first Indochina War or Vietnam War, it held more than 2000 people.
Hoa Lo would ultimately become a symbol of colonialist French exploitation of Indochina and of the bitterness that the Vietnamese had towards the French colonial Indochina authorities. Moreover, the central urban location of the prison would also define its character as from the 1910s through 1930s, street peddlers made an occupation of passing messages through the prison’s windows and of tossing tobacco and opium over the walls while letters and packets would be thrown out to the street. In the end and with many of the future political leaders of Communist North Vietnam spending time in Maison Centrale during the 1930s and 1940s, the prison served as an education center for revolutionary doctrine and activity.
