In the late 1980s, a real-life Squid Game-like area existed in South Korea, a horrifying concentration camp not talked about for over 25 years, and this might be the real reason why Squid Game was rejected so many times before its release: a fear of exposing South Korea's darkest secrets.
In the late 1980s, a strange series of kidnappings occurred. Jeong Yeon-ung, age 12, the son of a cart vendor, disappeared in September 1982. Forty years later, Jeong appeared on the Korean YouTube channel ‘구구무’ (gugumu) as a middle-aged man. “I was locked up for 4 years and 8 months,” said Jeong, who recalled going to a nearby town with his neighbour, but when he was alone, two policemen approached him and took him to the police station. When he left the police station, white vans waited for him to be taken away to a mysterious building.
After this, many children started going missing. Some children never returned home after going to school. Others were met by police cars and arrested without any warrant.
Choi Seung-woo, 53, another survivor who got abducted from the streets at age 14 on the way to his school, told BBC Korea, “A police officer stopped me and started searching through my bag. There was half a loaf of bread, a leftover from my school lunch. He said I stole the bread. He tortured and burned my genitals, saying he wasn’t going to let me go unless I confessed to the ‘crime’. Just wanting to go home, I lied ‘I stole it, please let me go…’.”
This place was called 'Hyunje Bokjiwon' or ‘Brothers' Home’. Children, citizens, homeless people, differently-abled individuals, or anyone who failed to show their identification were taken away by the police and brought to this concentration camp. They were all crammed into tiny vans, similar to what happens in "Squid Game". Children who cried were ruthlessly beaten. “They started to beat us, telling us we are too loud,” recalled Han Jong-sun, another victim, to BBC Korea.
These prisoners were made to wear blue track uniforms with stripes, and they were also kept in a huge room with multiple rows of bunk beds that could fit at least 80-100 people, similar to those in the show.
Here's another chilling story. At 5 am in the morning, the alarm started to ring, and Jeong and the other kids didn’t know what to do. They just followed what the others were doing. Thousands of people wore the same uniform as Jeong. People who were clueless about what to do were severely punished. Everyone there was forced to shave their heads and were given an identification number. “I had not committed a crime. Why was I given an identification number?”
Park Soon-hee, another victim of the case, told Al Jazeera English. They were also made to wear the same blue tracksuit throughout the year.
“I never got a chance to clean myself. My body got infested with lice,” said Han.
The inmates were forced to do manual labour, and if they did not reach a certain target, severe punishment awaited them. Jeong remembers his whole body just being bloody, and when his wounds became old, they were cut open again — and this happened on a daily basis. Many of the people trapped there died because they could not endure such horrific ordeals.
The prisoners were sexually abused almost every day. “Rape occurred almost every night in the corner of the dormitory. While I was trying to sleep, shivering naked, the platoon leader came again and raped me. He did that to me for three consecutive nights until I was transferred to a different platoon,” Choi Seung-woo told BBC Korea.
Interestingly, as in the series, Choi's father tried to file missing reports for him and his brother, who also got abducted, but they were completely ignored by the police.
It is one of the darkest periods in South Korea’s post-war history. When Park In-kuen, who was behind this horrific crime, was arrested, the Busan mayor pushed for his release. “The government was terrified of the spotlight,” said another victim to Al Jazeera English.
Brothers' Home was supposed to be a shelter for the homeless, but in reality, it was far away from that. At the time, South Korea was under the leadership of military dictator Chun Doo-Hwan, notorious for corruption, treason, etc.
During the 12 years of its operation, almost 550 people lost their lives, as per the reports of BBC Korea.
Survivors are still fighting for justice, and most of them are residing in Australia as they cannot forgive the government for letting such a thing happen to them and leaving them with lifelong trauma.
