POW camp from Korean War up for Memory of the World status

Geoje Prisoner of War Camp during the Korean War. Presumed to have been around Sinhyeon-eup, Suwol-ri in the city of Geoje, it imprisoned about 173,000 soldiers from North Korea and China. / Yonhap

By Ko Dong-hwan

The city of Geoje wants a prisoner of war camp from the Korean War listed as a UNESCO Memory of the World.

The island city off the southern coast has formed a special committee for the mission. City mayor Kwon Min-ho is leading 37 others, including lawmakers, heads of government offices and experts from academic circles, to have the camp recognized.

It is believed there are over 2 million pages of surviving records about the camp’s heritage kept by 43 institutes in 18 countries. They include 1,500 recorded items possessed by 10 institutes in South Korea.

The committee will see if there are more records around the world.

It has begun translating the records before submitting an application to register the camp in March. One of the museums in the island’s Historic Park of Geoje POW Camp will likely be renovated as an archive for the records.

The camp was used during the war to imprison North Korean and Chinese soldiers. It was designated by South Gyeongsang Province as cultural heritage No. 99 in 1983. In 1995, the city decided to build a 64,224-square-meter park, which was completed in 2002.

An academic symposium held last November concluded that the camp has a better chance of being selected as a Memory of the World than for UNESCO’s World Heritage program.