The museum was, actually, a real prison reflecting vividly the historical reality of the past.

The prison was built by the French in 1896.
This is an abhorrent place where many Vietnamese revolutionary fighters were tortured and beheaded by guillotine.

After the victory of the Indo-China War in 1954, Hoa Lo Prison was under control of the Vietnamese government.
Between 1964 and 1975, it was reused to imprison numerous captured American pilots, notably Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee in the U.S. presidential election in 2008.

Two thirds of the original prison was demolished in 1993 to make way for the Hanoi Towers.
And the original shapes of the prison, and exhibits, such as the guillotine tell us vividly the reality of the time.