Seodaemun Prison

This morning Lauren and I braved the icy winds in attempt to get to the Seodaemun Prison. 

Not knowing much about even why it was there – vague thoughts of the Korean war came to mind – the tour that we were taken on shocked me far more than I believed myself possible of getting. Having had images and films of the holocaust thrust upon me and the rest of the world since an early age, going to say, Auschwitz, was less than a surprise, and although horrifying in any kind of moral sense, the shock value was subdued by prior knowledge of events.

Admittedly the Japanese invasion of Korea is so far removed from Western culture that it is unlikely to be high on any history syllabus, and so I am less surprised to learn that I knew very little about it, save a few hazy recollections of stories I might have heard at home with my grandmother having lived through it. But hearing how Japan refused to take any responsibility for the invasion, let alone the torturing of the political prisoners (of which there were graphic representations) – “comfort women” still rally outside the Japanese embassy every Wednesday to this day to pressurise an apology – made me wonder whether there would even be such a museum in Japan to relay their version of events.

The prison has been moved out of Seoul for practical use, and what remains is a preservation of part of the original buildings used during the invasion. It is a well laid out museum, with several mannequins acting out torture scenes as they would have been done in the torture rooms, representations of cells, torture instruments and “wall coffins” – self explanatory upright boxes, in which Lauren had the (dis)pleasure of being locked in for a minute. There was a video of the testimony of the only two remaining survivors of the prison after Korea was liberated, fully pulling at heartstrings as the final words were, “Japan, apologise”.