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The Brothers' Home () was an internment camp (officially a welfare facility) located in Busan, South Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. The facility contained 20 factories and held thousands of people who were rounded up off the street, homeless people, children, and student protesters who opposed the government. The camp was used to perpetuate numerous human rights abuses in South Korea during the period of social purification. It has been nicknamed "Korea's Auschwitz" by various Korean media outlets.Multiple sources:
The of 1953 provided a legal basis for police forces to detain or transfer those who lacked supervision from "an adequate supervisor" and were "in need of aid" to police stations, hospitals, or other welfare facilities. Section 3 of the act required officers to acquire the consent of the subjected individual before aid was to be given. In the case where police "protection" was to take place, officers were required to "inform family members or other close associates of the aid recipient without delay". However, according to witness accounts, these procedures were rarely followed.
Arrested vagrants were distributed among 36 detention facilities across South Korea. Brothers Home was the biggest among these facilities. First established on July 20, 1960 in , Busan, Brothers Home began business as an orphanage under the name "Brothers Orphanage" (). As the orphanage expanded in size, it transformed into an accommodation center for general vagrants in the early 70s. In July 1975, Brothers Home signed a contract with the city of Busan and became one of its official homeless shelter. Subsequently, Brothers Home relocated to Jurye-dong.
This crackdown on vagrancy was intensified as rebranding efforts were taken place by the South Korean government in preparation for the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. On April 10, 1981, upon receiving a report from Military Security Command on the status of panhandling among disabled citizens, then-President Chun Doo-hwan ordered Prime Minister Nam Duck-woo to "crack down on begging and take protective measures for vagrants." In October 6, Chun ordered Nam to "make sure no panhandlers are on the streets of Seoul" before the 1988 Olympics.
In December 1986, Kim Yong-won, a prosecutor from the District Prosecutors' Office of Ulsan, set out on an investigation after hearing rumors from a local hunter that a group of laborers were logging in a nearby mountain while being assaulted by guards armed with clubs. Kim discovered that the workshop, which was located on a mountain in Ulju County, Ulsan, was operating under orders from Park In-guen, director of Brothers Home. Kim reckoned that Park was subjecting inmates brought from Brothers to forced labor, and launched a full-scale search and seizure investigation into the workshop and the center's main facility in Busan, on January 16, 1987. The investigation, which included interviews of more than 100 inmates, people, and executives of the center, concluded that the center's inmates, most of whom were of sound mind, had been involuntarily transported to and detained by the center, where they were subjected to forced, unpaid labor. A bank receipt indicating a deposit of 2 billion won (approx. $10.6 million in 2025 USD) was also found in a safe in the director's office.
Following the investigation by the Prosecution Service, National Assembly members of the New Korean Democratic Party subsequently conducted an independent investigation into Brothers. The party published its first report on the investigation on February 4, 1987. It concluded that, of the 3,975 inmates who were present at the center in 1986, 3,117 had been brought in by police, and 258 by county officials.
From 2022 to 2024, the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission conducted a series of three investigations into the incident.
The center was administered with an "army-like chain of command." To reduce administrative costs, one inmate was chosen as the "commander" of the facility, working directly under director Park In-geun. Under the commander, 120 vagrants were grouped into a single residence as one "platoon." Each platoon had a "leader", "general secretary", and "team leaders", all of whom were selected inmates. Inmates were also subjected to collective punishment. In some cases, the entire platoon would be beaten or tortured over the mistake of a single member.
Widespread torture was common. Inmates were often forced to keep painful and exhausting postures for prolonged periods and were beaten when they failed to stay still. In 2020, the Kukmin Ilbo reported accounts from a former inmate who claimed that director Park In-geun physically abused inmates himself and kept handcuffs and oak clubs in the director's office. He further claimed that he had heard rumors that about 40 to 50 inmates in Brothers were killed directly by Park himself.
Children and adolescents of Brothers often became victims of sexual violence by platoon officers. A small number of victims, labeled as 'ttongti' (stemming from "ttong", which translates to excrement) became the primary victims of same-sex sexual violence.
Various testimonies have reported that Brothers Home fed its inmates antipsychotics as a form of "chemical restraint". Purchase records from the center have revealed that Brothers purchased 250,000 tablets of chlorpromazine—along with a series of other antipsychotics such as haloperidol, flurazepam, and carbamazepine—in 1986 alone. In 1987, the city of Busan denied the accusations, explaining that the drugs were over-the-counter drugs that were purchased for medical purposes.
The 1987 New Korean Democratic Party investigation reports estimated that, based on records from the center, a total of 513 people died inside Brothers from July 5, 1975 to January 7, 1987. In 2014, an additional 38 victims were found to have died in the center from 1986 to its decommission in 1988, increasing the number to 551. In 2016, a Deutsche Welle news article reported that a minimum of 516 people died over the course of 20 years at Brothers Home. The 2022 Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation reported that, based on a comprehensive analysis, including all newly discovered death records from 1975 to 1988, a total of 657 people had died in the center. The bodies of dead inmates were buried in secret, cremated and buried in public cemeteries, or sold to nearby hospitals.
The European countries included Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark. Most of the Korean girls were not real orphans and had living biological parents, but their status was intentionally faked to show that they were orphans and put on adoption in foreign countries for money. The Korea Welfare Services, Eastern Social Welfare Society, Korea Social Service and Holt Children's Services were the adoption agencies involved in the trafficking of the girls. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission began investigating the scandal in 2022. The military leaders were linked to the agencies' board members, and they wanted to establish closer links with the West and decrease South Korea's population. South Korea's Korean Broadcasting System reported on the case of the Korean girl Kim Yooree who was taken away from her biological Korean parents and adopted to a French couple where she was raped and molested by her French adopted father. Across Australia, Europe and the United States, the majority-female Korean adoptees asked for an investigation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into the child trafficking scandal. Holt Children's Service was sued by a Korean adoptee in the US for compensation.
The prosecution, which originally sought a fifteen-year sentence and a fine amassing around 600 million won, was put under pressure by the Chun Doo-hwan administration. While the incident initially sparked public outrage, public interest faded away from the case due to cover-up efforts by the military regime and the subsequent death of student activist Park Jong-chul.
While Park In-geun was arrested in January 1987, the facility remained in operation until early 1988 and the company changed its name to Siloam's House in 1989.
Park In-geun was eventually sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, not for the human rights abuses at Brothers, but for embezzlement and corruption. His charges were dropped since he was suffering from dementia. Two years later Park had died.
Many survivors have sued the government since May 2021. In January 2024, the court awarded the 13 survivors the total of 4.535 billion won of the 8 billion won requested. Each received 75 million to 420 million won. The state and the survivors both appealed, but the ruling was upheld by appeals court and in March 2025 the Supreme court, cementing the result.
On December 10, 2020, public outcry led to the launch of the second Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which addressed human rights violations at facilities such as Brothers Home. On 23 August 2022, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Republic of Korea officially recognized the state's culpability in the human rights violations between 1975 and 1987 at Brothers Home. The abuses included confinement, isolation, forced unpaid labor, and various forms of violence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed in February 2025 that at least 31 children were improperly sent overseas for adoption, with nearly 5,000 pending cases. The investigation was set to conclude in May 2025 unless the National Assembly extended its mandate.
April 2015 survivors shaved their heads as a demonstration, and in December, Hahn Jong-seon began a hunger strike. September 2017 survivors walked 500 kilometers from the Brothers Home site in Busan to the Blue House in Seoul, which took 2 months. November 2017 survivors began a sit-in in front of the National Assembly building.
Among the most vocal and active participants in the survivor protest movement is Park Soon-hee is one of the most outspoken survivors of Brothers' Home and a key figure in the movement demanding justice for its victims. Detained at the age of ten, Park endured forced labor, physical abuse, and prolonged isolation. Her public testimony has helped to break the silence surrounding Brothers' Home and bring attention to the widespread human rights abuses that took place there under the guise of social welfare. She has participated in protest, media interviews, and truth hearins calling for full government accountability and a formal apology. [1]
To extend beyond domestic democracy, Park has raised concerns about former staff now living abroad, demanding further investigation and possible extradition. She has been particularly vocal about the complicity of religious leaders who supported the facility, emphasizing the need for institutional accountability alongside individual prosecution.
According to Shin Yi-geon (), a representative of The Korea Christian Newspaper, Park In-geun was a senior presbyter of a church belonging to The General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Korea. Shin further claimed that, despite being aware of the human rights violations at Brothers, Christian organizations in Busan such as the Busan National Council of Churches and the Busan YMCA neglected to reveal them.
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