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Similar North Korea Peace M, Korean Revolution Museum, Party Founding Museum, USS Pueblo (AGER‑2), International Friendship Exhibition | ||
Sinchon museum of american war atrocities
The Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities (Korean: 신천박물관) is a museum dedicated to the Sinchon Massacre, a mass-murder of North Korean civilians that was purportedly carried out by US troops during the Korean War. The museum is located in Sinchon County of North Korea. In July of 2015, the museum was rebuilt and moved to a new location in the county.
Contents
History
The Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities commemorates the deaths of over 35,000 people from the 17th of October to the 7th of December in 1950, at the same period of time when the major cities of North Korea, such as Pyongyang (the capital city) and Hamhung, were under a wartime occupation by South Korean, American and United Nations military forces.
The methods of torture and killing, as recounted in the museum, included local officials of the Korean Workers' Party being buried alive, being shot, having their arms pulled off and having nails pounded into their heads. Displays in the museum claim that as several of these individuals died, they denounced American imperialism and shouted,"Long live General Kim Il Sung! Long live the Workers' Party of Korea!". Nearby civilians in and the residents of Sinchon, including women and children, were said to have suffered badly as well. According to the museum, local women were raped and killed by American soldiers who also proceeded to separate infants from their mothers and then burn them to death. The US government has since and continually denied many of the torture methods that were mentioned by North Korea.
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies concluded that both Communists and anti-Communist vigilantes engaged in wholesale slaughter throughout the area, and that the 19th Infantry Regiment took the city and failed to prevent the secret police that came with them from perpetuating the civilian murders; however, the regiment did not participate themselves. Furthermore, when Communists retook the city, the population was again purged. Other sources have concluded that the "massacre" was caused by a local rivalry that used the fog of war as a pretense.
The museum complex consists of several buildings, an air raid shelter, and a gravesite. The air raid shelter, where Party members and civilians were burned to death, features scratches on the wall said to be evidence of human suffering as the victims died.
The museum is housed in the former Sinchon County Party Committee building, which was the site of much killing. Photographs, paintings, and artifacts are displayed in 16 rooms in the main hall and in 3 rooms in hall number two.
American war atrocities against the Korean people throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is a primary theme of the museum. Chronicled are the events from the General Sherman incident, Christian missionary activities, the post-World War II occupation of Korea, and the Korean War.
Notable visitors
Kim Il-sung visited the museum in 1953 and 1958, as did his son, Kim Jong-il, who paid a visit there in 1962 and 1998.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (the son of Kim Jong-il and the grandson of Kim Il-sung) visited the museum along with his sister in 2014. Kim Jong-un stated that he was present at his father's visit in 1998 and indicated his desire that the staff of the museum be looked after, given the ideological importance of their work (to showcase the purported brutality of US troops during the Korean War and the tremendous suffering of the North Korean people as a result).
It is a place where foreign visitors and international peace activists are occasionally welcomed, sometimes to give or listen to a speech. Foreign journalists are also encouraged to go to the museum. After the 1999 uncovering of the July 1950 No Gun Ri massacre and during the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, several activists went for a visit to the museum. These included Brian Becker (an American socialist), Brian N. Willson (a former US soldier who became an anti-war activist) and Erik Sirotkin (National Lawyers Guild). Former US Attorney-General Ramsay Clarke has also visited the museum as well, where he made a speech as part of an effort to investigate US war crimes in Korea during the Korean War, along with the Pennsylvania-based lawyer Michael Choi. Clarke was involved in a large rally at the museum on July 25, 2013. The visits made by Clarke and Sirotkin to Sinchon appear to have been organized by the DPRK Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and its vice-chairman, Kim Jin Bom.
In 2010, Stephen Codrington, a notable educator, visited the museum with a group of students and took a number of photographs of the museum and the surrounding city and the countryside.