Koje Unscreened

Koje Unscreened
AuthorsWilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington
LanguageEnglish
SubjectsKorean War, human rights, prisoners of war
Genresnon-fiction
PublisherBritain-China Friendship Association
Publication date
1953
Pages111

Koje Unscreened is a journalistic booklet published in 1953 and jointly written by Wilfred Burchett and Alan Winnington, the only two native English speaking journalists to cover the Korean War from the northern side of the conflict.

The book covers the infamous prisoner of war camp on Geojedo which was run by the United States military during the Korean War, and focuses primarily on both a riot in the camp on 10 June 1952 and the poor treatment of prisoners.[1][2] Both authors compare the American treatment of POWs to Nazi concentrations camps such as Belsen.[3] The book's content is largely based on interviews with escaped former inmates supplemented with Red cross reports and literature published in 1952,[4] and accuses the Americans and their allies of torture, rape, murder, forced conscription of enemy troops, and forced tattooing of prisoners.[5]

Comments by historians

Koje Unscreened has been used as a primary source for studying the Korean War by numerous historians. Historian Charles Steuart Young, described Koje Unscreened as containing "substantial insider information that had trickled out of the camps" and that the book "adds detail to events documented in other sources."[6]

Editions

Multiple editions were published, including a self-published version in China, and a version published in Britain by the Britain-China Friendship Association.[7]

References

  1. ^ D. McFarland, Keith (2009). The Korean War: An Annotated Bibliography (ebook). Taylor & Francis. pp. 303–304. ISBN 9781135223953.
  2. ^ Edwards, Paul M. (1998). The Korean War: An Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Press. p. 223. ISBN 9780313303173.
  3. ^ H. Brune, Lester; Higham, Robin, eds. (1996). The Korean War: Handbook of the Literature and Research. Greenwood Press. p. 103. ISBN 9780313289699.
  4. ^ Burchett, George; Shimmin, Nick, eds. (2007), "Koje Unscreened [1953]", Rebel Journalism: The Writings of Wilfred Burchett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 69–78, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511481659.010, ISBN 978-0-521-71826-4, retrieved 9 April 2023
  5. ^ Torney-Parlicki, Prue (2000). Somewhere in Asia: War, Journalism and Australia's Neighbours 1941–75. UNSW Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780868405308.
  6. ^ Steuart Young, Charles (2014). Name, Rank, and Serial Number: Exploiting Korean War POWs at Home and Abroad. Oxford University Press. pp. 39–40. ISBN 9780195183481.
  7. ^ Winnington Alan. (1953). Koje Unscreened (1953). The Authors Box 545 Peking.