Hanoi Hilton Pajamas

Grade Range: 9-12
Resource Type(s): Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted: 9/21/2010

From 1961 to 1973, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong held hundreds of Americans captive. In North Vietnam alone, more than a dozen prisons were scattered in and around the capital city of Hanoi. American POWs gave them nicknames: Alcatraz, Briarpatch, Dirty Bird, the Hanoi Hilton, the Zoo. Conditions were appalling; food was watery soup and bread, prisoners were variously isolated, starved, beaten, tortured—for countless hours—and paraded in anti-American propaganda. "It's easy to die but hard to live," a prison guard told one new arrival, "and we'll show you just how hard it is to live."


National Standards

United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)

World History Standards (Grades 5-12)

Historical Thinking Standards (Grades 5-12)

Instructional Strategies