Demolition, Conversion and Museum
Most of the prison was demolished in the mid-1990s and the site now contains two high-rise buildings, one of them the 25-story Somerset Grand Hanoi serviced apartment building. Other parts have been converted into a commercial complex retaining the original French colonial walls. Only part of the prison exists today as a museum. The displays mainly show the prison during the French colonial period, including the guillotine room, still with original equipment, and the quarters for men and women Vietnamese political prisoners. Exhibits related to the American prisoners include the interrogation room where many newly captured Americans were questioned (notorious among former prisoners as the "blue room") is now made up to look like a very comfortable, if spartan, barracks-style room. Displays in the room claim that Americans were treated well and not harmed (and even cite the nickname "Hanoi Hilton" as proof that inmates found the accommodations comparable to a hotel's). The museum's claims are contradicted by former prisoners' published memoirs and oral histories broadcast on C-SPAN identify the room (and other nearby locales) as the site of numerous acts of torture.
Read more about this topic: Hanoi Hilton
Famous quotes containing the words conversion and/or museum:
“The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)