Yu Gwan-sun

Yu Gwan-sun
File:YuGwanSun.jpg Portrait of Yu Gwan-Sun
Korean name
Hangul	유관순
Hanja	柳寬順
Revised Romanization	Ryu, Gwan-sun
McCune–Reischauer	Ryu, Kwan-sun

Ryu, Gwan-Sun(유관순) (March 15, 1904 – October 12, 1920) was the woman student Independence Activist of Korea. She led the 'March 1st movement', and got arrested by Japanese military police. She was died by cruel and terrible tortured of Japanese military police at age of 17. Her high school demanded return her body, but Japan worried to criticism of international society. Finally Japan gave her broken body that contained in the oil box.

Career

She was a student and organizer in what would come to be known as the March 1st Movement against the Japanese colonial rule of Korea in South Chungcheong. In 1919, Yu, Kwan-Sun was a student at Ewha Womans University's high school in Seoul, where she witnessed the beginnings of the March 1st Movement. Her deep faith in God and the teachings from the Methodist Ehwa School gave her the courage to act boldly. When the school went into recess, following an order by the Japanese government closing all Korean schools, she returned to her home in Jiryeong-ri (now Yongdu-ri).

There, along with her family, she began to arouse public feeling against the Japanese occupation. She also planned a demonstration for independence, which included people from some neighboring towns, Yeongi, Chungju, and Jincheon. The demonstration was scheduled to start on the first lunar day of March 1919 at 9:00 a.m. in Awunae Marketplace. About 2,000 demonstrators shouted, "Long live Korean Independence!" ("대한독립만세"). The Japanese police were dispatched at around 1:00 p.m. that same day, and Yu was arrested with other demonstrators. Both her parents were killed by Japanese police during the demonstration.

Yu served a brief detention at Cheonan Japanese Military Police Station. She shouted to judge,

"I'm Korean people. You came to my country and killed my many compatriots, and you killed my father and mother, so it's you who has committed a crime. We have the right that punish you. but you have no any cause and right that will judging us.

(나는 한국 사람이다. 너희들은 우리 땅에 와서 우리 동포들을 수없이 죽이고 나의 아버지와 어머니를 죽였으니 죄를 지은 자는 바로 너희들이다. 우리들은 너희들에게 형벌을 줄 권리는 있어도 너희들은 우리를 재판할 그 어떤 권리도 명분도 없다.)"

And then she was tried and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment at Seodaemun Prison. During her sentence, Ryu, Gwan-Sun continued to protest for the independence of Korea, for which she received harsh beatings and diverse, extremely severe forms of torture at the hands of Japanese officers. She died in prison on October 12, 1920, reportedly as the result of torture. Her final words were,

"Even if my fingernails are torn out, my nose and ears are ripped apart, and my legs and arms are crushed, this physical pain does not compare to the pain of losing my nation. My only remorse is not being able to do more than dedicating my life to my country.

(내 손톱이 빠져나가고, 내 코와 귀가 잘리고 내 손과 다리가 부러져도 그 고통은 이길 수 있사오나 나라를 잃어버린 그 고통만은 견딜 수가 없습니다. 나라에 바칠 목숨이 오직 하나밖에 없는 것이 이 소녀의 유일한 슬픔입니다.)"

The Japanese prison initially refused to release her body, but eventually and reluctantly the prison released her body to Lulu Frey and Jeannette Walter, principals of Ewha Womans School, and only after Frey and Walter threatened to expose this atrocity to the world. Her body was reported to have been cut into pieces. The body was contained inside an oil crate which was supposed to be returned to Saucony Vacuum Company. The Japanese Authorities did this as a retaliation against the threat from Ehwa School.

She was posthumously awarded the Order of Independence Merit in 1962.