Sodaemun Prison

This is a remnant of what I saw...
I stepped out of the Dongnimmun Station at Seodaemun-gu, I did not have any idea as where my History lecturer would lead us to. It turned out that we were about to visit a prison museum which left me speechless even after I stepped out of it. Sodaemun Prison was built in 1907, mainly to imprison and torture Korean patriots who fought for the independence of Korea from Japanese Rule. Its name has been changed many times over the years: to Kyongsong Prison in 1908, back to Sodaemun Prison in 1912, Sodaemun Penitentiary in 1923, Seoul Penitentiary in 1950, Seoul Correctional Institute in 1961, and Seoul Detention Camp in 1967.

It was raining at the time I got there at the Independence Hall. And never did I expect to see what was stored a bit further behind the park's museum-turned prison. What interested me was not only the fact that the museum cast the almost-real depictions of Japanese's cruelty in Korea during Japanese rule; but more than that, it raised me a question as to how this kind of museum could exist. This was simply because I had never seen the kind of museum about Japanese cruelty in Indonesia so vividly depicted as the one I saw in Sodaemun Prison.

I used to see the kind of Japanese rule diorama in Vrederburg Fortress in Jogjakarta but the Japanese rule was represented only by its Romusha--forced laborers during the Japanese occupation in World War II.

Nothing compared to what I saw there.