“Hanoi Hilton” exhibit opens at American Heritage Museum

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“Hanoi Hilton” exhibit opens at American Heritage Museum
This “tap code,” used by prisoners to communicate with each other in their cells, is part of the new Hanoi Hilton exhibit at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson. (Photo/Bill Gilman)

HUDSON – “The Hanoi Hilton.”

The nickname given by a prisoner to the notorious Hoa Lo prison compound in Hanoi, Vietnam. From 1964 to 1973, hundreds of American POWs spent years in solitary confinement at the prison, enduring inhumane living conditions and brutal physical and mental torture.

This past Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the start of “Operation Homecoming,” the first flights repatriating close to 600 POWs freed as part of the Paris Peace Accords, effectively ending the Vietnam War.

Sunday also marked the official opening of the new “Hanoi Hilton POW Experience” exhibit at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson. The multimedia exhibit features interviews with POWs who offer first-hand accounts of their capture, living conditions and torture at the hands of their North Vietnamese captors.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is a pair of prison cells built to replicate those at the “Hanoi Hilton.” The cells are constructed of bricks from the actual Hoa Lo prison, providing visitors with a chilling sense of reality as they hear the words of the former POWs.

“There were prisoner of war camps all over North Vietnam, but the Hanoi Hilton was where most of the [captured] airmen cycled through,” said Robert Collings, CEO of the Collings Foundation. “The American Heritage Museum has four complete cells from the Hoa Lo prison that were disassembled in the mid-90s.”

While most of the exhibits at the museum feature the vehicles and weapons of war, the Hanoi Hilton POW Experience is a chance for museum patrons to get a sense of the horrific nature of war through personal stories, videos and artifacts.

“[We have built the exhibit] to help people understand what that means to persevere through five, six, seven years of hell,” said Collings. “Unrelenting hell was what they went through.”

Among the more well-known POWs held at Hoa Lo prison were the late Sen. John McCain, the late Adm. James Stockdale, Bud Day and John Kittinger. The first American POW held at the prison was Navy pilot Everett Alvarez, who was shot down in 1964. He remained a prisoner for more than nine years, before being released in 1973.

The opening of the Hanoi Hilton exhibit on Feb. 12 was attended by almost 20 former POWs, as well as other former military personnel and Rep. Lori Trahan.

The American Heritage Museum, 568 Main St., Hudson, is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information on the Hanoi Hilton exhibit: https://www.hanoihiltonexhibit.org/.

 

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