On 13 October 2012 I visited Seodaemun Prison in Seoul. The Prison was build in 1908 and was a symbol of Japanese cruelty and oppression during their colonial rule of Korea from 1910 until 1945. It was build to house 500 prisons but up to 3500 were packed inside during the height of the anti-Japanese protests in 1919, there was no heat generated in the prison and the food consisted of just rice, barely and beans.
In one building the observer can experience what the Korean prisons suffered at the hands of the Japanese captors, firstly the torture scenes, you can look at the spikes in the box which prisons were placed inside.
Moreover you can see the court rooms and if the court finds you guilty you are placed in the execution chair to be hanged and be warned "yes" the chair still drops now! Around 300-600 people died here from torture, execution, malnutrition and disease.
In one building the observer can experience what the Korean prisons suffered at the hands of the Japanese captors, firstly the torture scenes, you can look at the spikes in the box which prisons were placed inside.
Moreover you can see the court rooms and if the court finds you guilty you are placed in the execution chair to be hanged and be warned "yes" the chair still drops now! Around 300-600 people died here from torture, execution, malnutrition and disease.
The most famous victim was Ryu, Gwan-Sun, an 18 year old Ewha high school student who was tortured to death in 1920. The female prisons were kept in underground cells. The execution building build in 1923 is horrific and painstakingly chilling. Behind the building lay a 200 meter tunnel to a hillside cemetery where the bodies were buried. It is the most somber thing I think I have every witnessed and I can't envisage what it was like here.
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| Ryu Gwan Sun 1902-1920 |
I observed the execution building and there was a big tree near by where all the condemned prisoners hung on to trying to save themselves. It is not possible to take a photo of the execution building because you have to respect the dead or the tunnel where they dumped the bodies. It is chilling and I felt sad, you could still today see the hanging rope in the building and the adjacent tunnel were the Japanese dumped the dead prisoners.
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| The Tree where the Korean prisoners hung on to for life and the execution building behind |
Ryu Gwan Sun's final words were " Even if my fingernails torn out, my nose and ears rip apart, my legs and arms crush, the pain of losing my nation is more brutal"
She died in jail aged 18 though torture, they killed both her parents as well.
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| Ryu Gwan Sun Korean Martyr |
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