ABSTRACT
Vietnam is a country more scarred than most as the result of centuries of intermittent civil war and frequent foreign intervention. It has, therefore, many places that bear witness to past episodes of pain and injustice and that also reflect the ambivalence that present-day societies often feel towards these episodes. is paper deals with Hoa Lo, the former prison located in central Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Here successive groups of prisoners experienced extremes of suffering but the pain felt gives way to other emotions over time, not excluding shameful regret on the part of some perpetrators of suffering. e fact that the punished and the punishers swapped roles at several points shows the complexity of dealing with places of pain and shame, both by societies in general and by heritage professionals in particular.
