War Remnants Museum

The War Remnants Museum stands at 28 Vo Van Tan in District 3 of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a short distance from Reunification Palace. It opened in September 1975, only months after the fall of Saigon, as the Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes, and was renamed in the early 1990s as relations with the United States normalised. The collection documents the conflict from 1945 to 1975 from the Vietnamese point of view and focuses on the experience of civilians. The open-air yard displays captured American armour and aircraft, including tanks, artillery pieces, helicopters and fighter-bombers. Inside the main building, galleries are arranged thematically across several floors. One of the best known shows war photography by journalists from many countries, including the work of photographers killed while covering the conflict. Other rooms address the use of Agent Orange and other defoliants and their long-term effects on health, show a collection of anti-war protest posters from around the world, and present material on the international solidarity movement. A separate section reproduces the tiger cages and a guillotine used in prisons on Con Dao island. The architecture is a plain, functional mid-century complex of exhibition halls with a courtyard and garden, rather than a historic monument. The curatorial approach is thematic and emotive, with large photographic panels and short captions in Vietnamese and English. Some galleries contain graphic imagery of injured people and deformed infants, and the presentation is unambiguously one-sided, so visitors benefit from reading it as the Vietnamese account of the conflict. The museum has been expanded and refurbished several times since the 1990s, and its displays are kept in good condition. It is typically busy through the day and is often paired with a visit to the nearby palace and the Saigon Central Post Office.