Within the grounds of the Ho Chi Minh City Tropical Hospital, there exists a prison over a hundred years old, which used to detain many revolutionary soldiers during the American war. Saigon travel
Ho Chi Minh City Tropical Hospital has a long and tumultuous history. Established in 1862, this place is not only a medical facility but also a witness to many historical changes. Few people know that before becoming the center for treating infectious diseases in the City, this place used to be a mental hospital, called "Cho Quan Hospital".
Not only that, the hospital also preserves traces of a prison camp that is more than 150 years old, built by the French to detain political prisoners during the war time such as Tran Phu.
According to historical records, the prison was built in 1875 and was used as a place to detain and treat mental patients. Later, in order to serve the purpose of interrogating revolutionary information, the French brought prisoners to the mental hospital to both treat them temporarily and continue to interrogate them.
The prison is designed in a U shape. The horizontal row is 32m long and 12m wide. The two vertical rows are equal, each row is 14m long and 7.5m wide. The building has colonial architecture with a yin-yang roof; the walls are 4m high and 0.4m thick; the windows have two layers of iron mesh.
The prison area is divided into two separate areas for male and female prisoners. Each area is divided into individual and group cells, connected by long, deep corridors. Some areas cannot receive sunlight, causing the walls to be covered with moss, and a few shoots of plants to sprout from the cracks.
In the individual cells, each cell has an area of only about 2 square meters, small and damp; the collective detention area alone has an area of more than 30 square meters with a capacity of about 20 people. Each cell has a platform to lie on. During the French colonial period, this platform was made of wood, but when the American came, it was replaced with cement and tiled with terracotta. The cold platform that penetrates the skin still retains traces of shackles and chains under the colonial regime, making the space even more gloomy and ghostly.
The most notable point here is the cell where Tran Phu was detained. He was arrested by the French colonialists at 66 Champagne Street (now Ly Chinh Thang Street, District 3) and then detained and subjected to many tortures in many different prisons, causing his health to deteriorate. The French colonialists wanted to keep Tran Phu alive to exploit secrets, so on August 26, 1931, they took him to the prison camp in Cho Quan Hospital for treatment. However, due to his tuberculosis becoming severe, Tran Phu passed away in September 1931.
In the damp, dark prison, the chains tightened his body, the whips tore his flesh. The miserable meals, the long days within the four walls of confinement, seemed to be able to crush his will, although his body was tortured, his spirit remained indomitable.
Today, in this room there is still a portrait photo of him, and occasionally the caretakers place a vase of flowers here to remind future generations.
In contrast to the space inside, the outside of the prison has now become a small garden providing shade for patients being treated at the Tropical Hospital. And perhaps they do not know that behind those bricks, porches, and door frames are "witnesses" to a painful period of the nation.
In 1988, this prison complex was recognized as a national historical relic by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The upgrading and improvement of space, architecture and landscape at the relic site aims to promote the value of the relic with a space to preserve and display fine arts, meeting the needs of visiting, researching and learning about the history of the people of Ho Chi Minh City in particular and the whole country in general.
