The War Remnants Museum

The War Remnants Museum is located at 28 Vo Van Tan, in district three of Saigon. It is one of the city’s chief attractions and receives visitors from all corners of the globe.

The museum opened during September 1975, originally named ‘The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government’. After this, it was renamed: ‘the Museum of American War Crimes’, and later ‘War Crimes Museum’. Liberalization of Vietnam and improvements in relations with the USA has led to another more recent name change – ‘War Remnants Museum’.

The museum is spread over a number of buildings and has a total of eight rooms, each with a different theme. There is also period military equipment on display inside a walled enclosure. This equipment includes a helicopter, F-5A fighter, M48 Patton tank, as well as an A-1 attacker bomb.

Visitors can view the tiger cages which the South Vietnamese government used to confine political prisoners. Graphic and disturbing images depict the effects of chemical sprays and phosphorus bombs.

Visitors can see the guillotine which was used by French and South Vietnamese to execute prisoners, while three jars contain preserved human foetuses which illustrate the deformation caused by dioxin.

All items and photographs have detailed descriptions in both Vietnamese and English. The exhibition starts to the right of the entrance, and begins with a catalogue of war facts and figures, moving onto biological warfare, weaponry and international peace demonstrations.