War is a living hell. If you believe nothing is worse than being on the battlefield, never allow enemies to capture and detain you as a prisoner of war (POW). Despite being well protected by international laws under the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, many POWs experienced horrifying tortures and abuses that immensely violated even their most basic human rights.

The year was 1954, and tensions in Vietnam had escalated among its disunited people, with each side favoring and promoting different ideologies. The communist North had long despised how its liberal brothers in the South had welcomed US funding, armaments, and training, and as its Western allies continued their military expansion, the North began its aggressive move toward the South. At the height of the conflict, the United States had deployed approximately 550,000 troops to the frontlines of Vietnam and had reportedly suffered over 58,000 casualties and missing until its withdrawal in 1973.

Throughout the conflict period, the North Vietnamese had established at least thirteen prisons and prison camps (mostly located near Hanoi) to detain its American POWs, the most notoriously known of which was Hoa Lo Prison (nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton”).

Once A Vietnamese Torture Camp

The Hoa Lo Prison was first built by the French to incarcerate Vietnamese political prisoners who tried to advocate for independence from French Indochina. Initially named Maison Centrale (means “Central House”), even then, the prison camp had seen dozens of inhumane torture and executions of its captives—becoming a bitter symbol of colonialist exploitation and Vietnamese hostility toward the French and, eventually, the West.

So, when the Vietnam War broke out, the communist North took over the French-built prison camp, renaming it Hoa Lo, which loosely translates to “hell’s hole” or “fiery furnace,” a bitter homage to what it was like for the Vietnamese prisoners and a grim nod to the life American POWs had to endure.

Inside Hanoi Hilton Prison Camp

The notorious prison camp was surrounded by “20-foot walls, topped with barbed wires and broken glass” to ensure that escape from hell’s hole would be impossible. According to the account of the first American POW to get incarcerated in the prison camp, detainees of the Hoa Lo had endured miserable and unsanitary conditions, deprived even of their most basic needs, including adequate food and clean water. Speaking after his release, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Everett Alvarez Jr. recounted his harrowing experience. He spent the longest among the American POWs with over eight and a half years (during the first six months as the sole US aviator detainee in North Vietnam) in captivity. His persistence and ground-rooted conduct inspired other prisoners to endure the brutality and torture inside the camp.

Hoa Lo Prison 1967
Exterior view of what American POWs called the “Little Vegas” inside Hoa Lo Prison, 1973. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Eventually, as many American POWs became imprisoned in the complex, it earned dozens of sarcastic nicknames, including the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” in reference to the renowned Hilton Hotel chains back home. Several individual buildings within the compound also received their names, such as “Heartbreak Hotel,” “New Guy Village,” and “Little Vegas.”

A Fiery Hell’s Hole

Even though the North was a signatory to the Third Geneva Convention and knew that POWs should be treated “humanely in all circumstances,” excruciating torture methods were used, such as extreme beatings, rope bindings, iron foot stocks, and prolonged solitary confinement to punish, but mainly to force prisoners into confessing to war crimes and participating in stage propaganda activities, as well as extract military intel.