War Remnants Museum - HCM

(click on photo to enlarge)



The Vietnam War or as it is known in Vietnam: The American War

The Museum opened in 1975 (after the Fall of Saigon when the Communist North Vietnamese stormed the Presidential Palace in Saigon in South Vietnam. The North and South eventually reunified under Communist rule and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh after the North Vietnamese war leader, Ho Chi Minh. The Museum has had various names beginning with the The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam. Later it was known as the Museum of American War Crimes. Later still, The War Crimes Museum --- The current name followed Vietnam normalization of relations with the United States, ie, let's change that name, we don't want the Americans to feel uncomfortable.




U.S. tank


The museum has several themed rooms including Historical Truths: The Causes and Origins of Aggressive Wars. Requiem: Collection of Photos by International War Journalists and Vestiges of War Crimes -- These specific rooms contain numerous large size photos documenting the deaths of soldiers and civilians, My Lai massacre victims, the tragic effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people, torture techniques and imprisonment. Stark. Grim.




The graffiti on the jail wall is a poem written in Chinese:

The body is in the jail,
the spirit is outside.
To accomplish great things,
the spirit has to be greater.






The Museum delivers an unabashed Vietnamese perspective. A lot of period military equipment is lying around the museum grounds including the tank that stormed the Palace gates and a number of unexploded devices are stored in the corner of the yard, supposedly with the ignition charges removed.



This piece of equipment was used to spray Agent Orange