Towel Used in a Prison for War Criminals
This is the towel of Wan-gun Kim, who was sentenced to ten years imprisonment by a UK military tribunal held in 1946 in a Java prisoners’ camp. Mr. Kim started his sentence in Changi Prison, was later transferred to Outram Prison in Singapore, and then finally to Japan’s Sugamo Prison, where he was released on parole in 1952.
“L508” was his ID number in Outram. Mr. Kim used this towel in prison, keeping it close to him and carefully mending it over and over even after being released.
The Japanese government implemented measures such as compensation for its former soldiers and their families, but due to their loss of Japanese citizenship under the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, Korean “war criminals” were denied compensation. They were also denounced by fellow Zainichi Koreans as pro-Japanese collaborators. They faced extreme difficulties throughout the postwar years.
They created a mutual assistance organization (Dōshinkai) through their own initiative and fought strenuously to get the Japanese government to provide an apology and compensation.
