Artifacts Related to Forced Labor by the Japanese Empire to be Publicly Purchased by the Korean History Museum

The National Forced Mobilization History Museum of Korea announced that it will publicly purchase artifacts related to forced mobilization by Japan from June 11 to July 11. The museum will purchase artifacts publicly for the purpose of exhibition, education, and research related to forced mobilization by Japan.

The artifacts to be purchased include railway-related artifacts from the Japanese colonial period and artifacts related to hygiene, infectious diseases, and vaccination. In addition, it includes materials related to forced mobilization in Sakhalin, Russia, Southeast Asia, and the central-western Pacific region, as well as materials related to the Japanese military "comfort women" (ianbu) and Korean women forced labor conscription, advertisements for government-brokered employment in newspapers at the time, contact items of forced mobilization victims, and other materials related to forced mobilization.

The types of artifacts are diverse, including maps, registers, photos, films, clothing, consumer goods, flags, certificates, symptoms, notebooks, albums, promotional materials, pictorials, letters, handwritten accounts, series, trial records, and more. Anyone, including individual collectors, cultural property trading companies, corporations, organizations, and individuals, can apply. However, materials with unclear origins, stolen or looted goods, illegally obtained materials, or jointly owned property are excluded from the purchase target.

Application forms can be downloaded and filled out from the museum's website (fomo.or.kr/museum). Applications are only accepted by mail or in person.

The museum opened in 2015 in Daeyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Busan. It serves as a memorial and commemorative facility for the victims and bereaved families of forced mobilization, and it is a space for education on the history of forced mobilization by Japan. It displays materials that investigate and record the inhumane forced mobilization practices of the Japanese Empire, a war criminal nation in the Asia-Pacific War.