Seodaemun Prison

The prison, built in 1908, is a symbol of Japanese cruelty and oppression during their colonial rule of Korea from 1910 until 1945. The main hall has three floors of exhibitions, including lifelike re-creations of torture scenes in the nightmarish interrogation cells in the basement. Photographs of the prison and prison conditions are on view along with video footage. Not everything is translated into English.

Visitors can look around and go inside the original prison cell blocks where the independence fighters were held. Built to house 500 prisoners, up to 3500 were packed inside during the height of the anti-Japanese protests in 1919. There was no heating and the food was just rice, barley and beans.

The factories where prisoners were forced to make bricks and military uniforms have gone, but some of the red prison-made bricks with Chinese characters stamped on them have been used to make the pavements.

In another building you can experience what the prisoners suffered. Firstly the torture scenes – look at the spikes in the box which prisoners were put inside; next the court finds you guilty, and you sit down on the execution chair to be hanged – be warned: the chair drops down!

An outdoor memorial lists the names of 90 Koreans known to have died in the prison, but around 300 to 600 nameless others died here from torture, execution, malnutrition and disease.

The most famous victim was Ryu Gwan-sun, an 18-year-old Ewha high school student, who was tortured to death in 1920. The female prisoners were kept in underground cells.

The execution building (1923) is chilling. Behind it is a 200m tunnel to a hillside ­cemetery where the bodies were buried.