La Guillotine, My Experiences with this machine!

I came across this machine in Hanoi, while I was there. It was in a room in what was known as the Hanoi Hilton, a prison that had famously had one of the Presidential candidates while it was still a prison, John McCain. The whole experience of seeing the rooms they were held in was deeply disturbing, and then to find this machine, left over from the time that the French ruled in Vietnam. It was in a room, nearby the cells, and had been in use, horribly, during the French period, and later in the Vietnam period.

I was absolutely horrified at the idea that this machine was used to “punish” people.

Paradoxically, while I was building our house in Australia, I recreated a field of guilleteens. Actually, I built this for the posts that would hold the floor of our house up. So there were about 167 of them…..

So this is what it looked like!

So, this is my experience with Guillotines.