time zone will be applied.
Report this post?
DATE: Wednesday. June 11, 2024. 7:20PM (Seoul)
VENUE: Seoul Public Activities Center (SPAC, 서울시공익활동지원센터). ‘주고받다 ROOM’
(ADDRESS: B1, 40 Baekbeomro 99-gil, Yongsan Verdium Friends(용산베르디움프렌즈) #101, Yongsan-gu, Seoul), 2-3 minutes walking from Exit 8 of Samgakji-Station (Line 6 & Line 4)
ADMISSION (Online & In-person): Free for Members; W10,000 for Non-members; W5,000 for Non-member students (Student ID requested)
SUMMARY:
While the wretched treatment of Allied prisoners of war by the Imperial Japanese Army in Southeast Asia is well remembered today, less known is the fact that over a thousand Allied POWs were imprisoned in Korea from September 1942 to September 1945. Once an obscure topic, recent years have seen their story covered in academic and military history books which shed ever greater light on the experiences of these prisoners
A key aspect of their internment in Korea is the fact that they were brought here to serve two propaganda goals. The first was to show Koreans that the US and UK had been defeated, and that they should therefore rejoice in becoming subjects of the Japanese emperor. The second goal was to house them in “show camps” for the Red Cross to convince the Allies their prisoners were being treated well. As a result of the latter policy, the POWs suffered a much lower death rate in Korea than elsewhere in Japan’s Co-prosperity Sphere. In the end, however, neither of these aims was achieved.
As a result of the camps in Seoul, Incheon, and later Heungnam being ‘show camps,’ the Japanese took numerous photos of the prisoners, while the POWs themselves, while confined, made their own magazines and, after they were freed, wrote diaries and sketchbooks of their experiences. Their liberation at the hands of American and Soviet soldiers also provided an opportunity to film the POWs. As a result, their internment in Korea is visually well-documented, and this lecture will make use of these materials.
The experiences of the POWs in Korea provide a lens through which to view the final years of the Japanese empire, the attempts of the Japanese to convince Koreans to join the imperial cause, and the opening weeks of the Korea’s occupation by the US and USSR.
SHORT BIO:
Matt VanVolkenburg first arrived in Korea in 2001 and in 2005 began his blog, Gusts of Popular Feeling, where for 20 years he has written about modern Korean history, including film, music, urban redevelopment, and depictions of foreigners. He received an M.A. in Korean Studies from the University of Washington and is the co-author of “Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising.” His current research interests include 1970s youth culture, the history of Itaewon, US-ROK relations, and the Gwangju Uprising.
