One of the things I was most curious to learn about while in Saigon was the legacy of the Vietnam War.Growing up in the '70s and '80s, the war was a murky, touchy issue as far as my education was concerned. I don't recall it ever being mentioned in any of my history lessons until I got to college. And being in the country that was one of the principal architects of the war (and ultimately, the losing side) it wouldn't be unexpected if my lessons were slightly skewed. So I wondered, how was the war viewed from the Vietnamese side?
The War Remnants Museum gives a pretty good idea of that perspective. Its original name, when it opened in 1975, was "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam". One story behind the name change is that the American government demanded it as one of the conditions of normalizing diplomatic relations. Another story is that the museum was afraid it would offend American tourists and chase away their dollars.
No matter what the museum is called, its message is clear: The local residents suffered indescribable atrocities during the war. Their story is told in a series of chilling photographs and displays inside the open-air museum.
The enlarged photos of dead and mutilated bodies, terrified villagers fleeing with their children, and faces of men moments before execution left nearly all the tourists shocked and speechless. Sometimes the only sounds you could hear were the occasional clicks of a camera.Some of the most heartbreaking photos were of children who suffered from exposure to Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants. Children were shown with twisted, spindly limbs and crumpled backs, sitting awkwardly on the floor and staring blankly at the camera. A couple of glass jars contained preserved fetuses with severe deformities.
The second floor of the museum is devoted to the work of the 134 reporters and photographers who were killed in the war. Many of the photos were famous ones I recognized from Life magazine and other U.S. publications.
On the grounds outside the museum is an assortment of the machinery used in the war: helicopters and airplanes and bomb parts. There is also a replica of a detention camp/prison used by the South Vietnamese against the Viet Cong.
Inside this replica is another photo display showing the grisly effects of torture as practiced in the prison. The accompanying text gives a lot of clinical descriptions of the various torture methods used in the camp, such as waterboarding. One should not eat much before seeing this part of the museum, as it's sure to induce nausea.This guillotine was used on "troublemakers" by the French, back in the days when they were running things. I admit I was taken aback as I watched some tourists pose for photos next to it, cheerfully grinning and flashing the peace sign with their heads positioned near the neck clamp. Nothing I had seen had given me anything to be cheerful about.
I was a little surprised to see a gift shop, one on each floor. I couldn't imagine sending a postcard of one of the images I had just seen. But the shops sold mostly military insignia, tour books, and buttons of the Vietnamese flag or the ever-present Uncle Ho.I walked out of the museum feeling somewhat depressed. But I also thought that a museum tour would make a pretty convincing argument against the idea that war is a good, or even glorious, idea. No matter what your political stance is on Vietnam or any other war, this museum shows that in the end, it's the ordinary civilians who suffer the most.
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