Mostof the original prison was demolished in 1996 to make way for the HanoiTowers (now Somerset Grand Hanoi) serviced apartment and officecomplex, but the southernmost corner has been preserved and reopened tothe public as a memorial to the revolutionaries who died here inatrocious conditions. Visitors can view the original cells, completewith leg-irons, along with a selection of bilingual (Vietnamese andEnglish) displays illustrating the horrors of life in the prison duringthe French colonial period.

Conditionswere appalling; food was watery soup and bread. Prisoners werevariously isolated, starved, beaten, tortured for countless hours andparaded in anti-American propaganda. "It is easy to die but hard tolive," a prison guard told one new arrival, "and we will show you justhow hard it is to live." The prison is really “A Hell on Earth”.
The Hanoi Hilton was depicted in the eponymous 1987 Hollywood movie TheHanoi Hilton. Hanoi Tower, built on the site of the infamous prison"Hanoi Hilton"; the entrance to the remaining parts of the prisonvisible in the foreground. By 1996, most of the walls of the HanoiHilton had been torn down to make way for new construction. Portions ofthe walls were retained for historical reasons. The Vietnamese alsohave bitter memories of the prison, for many communist revolutionarieswere kept and tortured there. In 1998, the old front of the prison waspainted and restored and the remaining portions of the prison wereturned into a tourist site. Some of the cells have been opened andconsiderable information about Vietnamese prisoners is available. Theinformation about the U.S. prisoners of war is unreliable. There is nowa Hilton Hotel in Hanoi, called the Hilton Hanoi Opera Hotel, whichopened in 1999. It was built decades after the Vietnam War was over,but Hilton carefully avoided reusing the dreaded name Hanoi Hilton.

HoaLo Prison is a historical attraction to many local and foreignvisitors. You should pay a visit to the prison to experience thehistory with your own eyes.