Today's tour was all about the Korean patriots who fought for independence during Japanese colonial rule. The prison was where far too many of them wound up, and some even died in there. It's almost like a Korean Auschwitz.
Here's the veiew from inside the complex. The snow definitely made it seem eerier.
Prisons lived could be confinded to cells the size of closets. The regular cells were not much bigger. The toilet was basically just a hole that drained to the outside like so.
When it came time for outdoor exercise, the prison keepers were not kind. The area is divided so that prisoner can not talk to each other. Because actually they were never allowed to speak.
They could all be watched from on elevated platform.
The work inside the prisons was a similar story to other prisons. They made bricks. It reminded first of touring the old colonial prisons in Tasmania. The prisoners in both stamped the bricks to symbolise the owner of their labor. Oddly enough it also reminded me of seeing the museum in Singapore where Australian troops held as P.O.W. worked making bricks. In a symbol of resistence they stamped bricks with the symbol for the Queen. Which is also kind of ironic because they're Australian. Here's the symbol of the capital city, stamped on each brick.
Unlike the Australian prisons, men and women were both kept in this facility. There were a lot of women in the prison to. Some were directly involved in the movement, others arrested for cooking for their husband and his friends who were part of the movement. If you needed a hero it would be Yu Gwansun. She's known as Korea's Joan of Arc. She was only 16 when she got arrested for her involvement in trying to overthrow the colonial government. A year after she was arrested, her and the other women in her cell began yelling slogans for an independent Korea. Remember of course that no one was speaking at this prison. So, like Joan of Arc, she was killed.
The excution area is probably the most heart wrenching. The walls are so high that the area is always dark. Two trees were planted on either side of the wall at the same time. So one got less sunlight, you can easily tell which on is the "sad tree".
That tree has seen things.
The execution area was intense, but no as intense as the torture area. This is where that whole Auschwitz comparison can come in. The were many forms of torture. Being with interrogation you could hear the people in isolation screaming in nearby rooms. They did waterboarding, but worse, sewage and hot pepper was added to the water. Needles jammed under finger nails. A box with sharpened wooden needles jutting out from the walls, and then it was shaken. Closets, like a tight fit coffin, where you would have no room to move. Experimenting and worse. All modern day war crimes and human rights violations.
The difference being that trials were held to keep perpetrators accountable, and punish them accordingly. Here, that didn't happen. In fact most Korean's will tell you Japan never apologized to Korea for these atrocities. Some will tell you the Japan denies wrong doing and even tries to cover up historical records on the abuses.
Dark, dark history.
Putting the tours together you can appreciate that now is the best period of living in Korea. There were warring kingdoms, that then unified under the Joseon dynasty -that fought off further attacks. Then came the Japanese occupation, and the resulting independence movement only stoked a civil war. Ironically, Koreans will tell you colonial Japan modernised Korea, but Korea hold the title for most modernised country in North Asia.
Now is the best time to be in Korea.
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