Historic Park of Geoje POW Camp

During the Korean War up to 173,000 prisoners were held on Geoje Island, more people than the island's own population, behind barbed wire. Prisoners even kidnapped the camp commandant. The Historic Park of Geoje POW Camp uses the remains and exhibition halls on the camp site to tell the story of this "war within a war" born of the Cold War.

History: a vast camp on an island

Geoje lay close enough to the mainland to ship prisoners in easily, yet at the time it could only be reached by boat, which made it well suited to keeping them isolated. UN forces began building camps at Gohyeon, Suwol, Yangjeong and elsewhere in November 1950 and took in prisoners from February 1951. About 150,000 North Korean and 20,000 Chinese prisoners were held here, along with 3,000 women prisoners and conscripted civilians.

Inside the camp, prisoners who wanted to return to the North clashed violently with anti-communist prisoners who refused repatriation. On 7 May 1952 prisoners in Compound 76 even kidnapped the commandant, Brigadier General Francis Dodd. The camp closed after the armistice of 27 July 1953, and those who chose to go home were sent north via Panmunjom.

What to see

• Original remains: fragments of camp buildings survive around the park. They were designated Gyeongsangnam-do cultural heritage material in 1983.
• Exhibition halls: halls on the Korean War, the conflict between prisoner groups and the riots show daily life and the tensions inside the camp with dioramas and documents.
• Hungnam Evacuation Memorial: erected in 2005 to commemorate the December 1950 evacuation that carried refugees out of the port of Hungnam.
• Outdoor exhibits: a tank, the prisoner repatriation train and a reconstruction of the 64th Field Hospital.

Good to know

On 18–19 June 1953 President Syngman Rhee released about 35,000 anti-communist prisoners who refused repatriation from eight other camps. Geoje was not among them, so prisoners here went through the repatriation process after the armistice. The museum opened in 1999 and the full historic park in 2002.

How the camp worked, and the prisoner exchanges

The camp was divided into enclosures numbered in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, each holding about 6,000 men. In all there were 4 enclosures with 28 compounds, served by an airfield, a port, supply depots and a hospital, like a city of its own. The camps covered some 12 km².

In 1953 the two sides agreed to exchange sick and wounded prisoners first, and from 20 April to 3 May the first exchange of the war took place: 684 prisoners returned to the UN side and 6,670 to the North Korean and Chinese side. After the Dodd kidnapping, when the new commandant split the prisoners into smaller camps, it emerged that 105 anti-communist prisoners had been killed by pro-communist inmates.

Tripto tips

• Opening hours: 09:00–18:00; tickets and last entry until 17:00.
• Closed: every Tuesday (or the next weekday if Tuesday is a public holiday), and on Seollal and Chuseok days.
• Admission: adults KRW 7,000, teenagers and soldiers KRW 5,000, children KRW 3,000. Some paid attractions and parking are extra.
• Getting there: the park is at 61 Gyeryong-ro, Geoje. City buses such as 102 and 104 run from Gohyeon Bus Terminal.
• Time: allow 90 minutes to 2 hours to see the halls properly.