Thanks to this couple, the Yi Jun Peace Museum preserves a slice of Korea's independence movement

Yi Jun Peace Museum director Song Chang-joo, right, and her husband Lee Kee-hang, explain the history behind the museum in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo. [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
THE HAGUE — On the morning of Aug. 8 in The Hague, a city on the western edge of the Netherlands, the Korean flag fluttered in a narrow alleyway — a sign that the Yi Jun Peace Museum was open.
 
A small doorbell at the modest entrance rang out with the clear voice of 86-year-old museum director Song Chang-joo: “Push the door hard and come up to the second floor!”
 

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The staircase behind the door was narrow and steep. The light brown wooden floor gleamed from years of polishing. Every wall and table on the museum’s three floors was filled with documents and photographs — more than 200 artifacts collected by Song and her 89-year-old husband Lee Kee-hang over 30 years.
 
“There’s still so much more to find and organize,” they said firmly.
 
Bouquets of fresh flowers, carefully arranged, were placed throughout the exhibits — a clear sign that the museum was tended to with constant care.
 

The Yi Jun Peace Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
The couple opened the museum on Aug. 5, 1995, without ever hiring staff or outsourcing the work.
 
“Only the outside windows are cleaned by someone else. This place can’t be damaged,” Song said.
 
Commuting by train from Amsterdam, about an hour away, they raise the Korean flag at 10:30 a.m. each day and take it down at 6 p.m., crossing the city to return home. Their only break was during the three years of pandemic closures and when Song and Lee each received the Order of Civil Merit — Lee in 1993 and Song in 2023 — and the museum was briefly entrusted to others.
 
Independence activist Yi Jun died here at age 48 on July 14, 1907, after traveling to The Hague with Yi Sang-seol and Yi Wi-jong as special envoys of Emperor Gojong to protest the 1905 Eulsa Treaty — an agreement that forced Korea to surrender its sovereignty — at the Second Hague Peace Conference.
 
Denied entry to the conference, the envoys held a press conference instead, issuing a statement that opened the first chapter of Korea’s 40-year independence movement. The museum building was formerly the De Jong Hotel, where the envoys stayed, with their rooms preserved as memorial spaces.
 

Exhibits at the Yi Jun Peace Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 

The Yi Jun Peace Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
The couple said that their 30-year stewardship began by chance, with a newspaper column.
 
In July 1992, Song read a freelance column in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad lamenting that the hotel where a young Korean had died for his country was being left to decay.
 
“We decided we had to buy it — if not this building, then the one next to it,” Song recalled.
  
At the time, they had no plans for a museum. Built in the 1620s, the property was in danger of demolition. The first floor housed The Hague’s largest billiard hall, open until 1 a.m., while the upper floors, abandoned by the owner, were occupied by drifters.
 
“It was like a garbage dump,” Lee said. “It was old and was likely to be taken down, but we couldn't let history go to waste.” 
 

The Yi Jun Peace Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
The building, owned by the city of The Hague, was purchased for $200,000 with help from the mayor, who recognized its historic value. Song, born in Pyongan, and Yi, from Kanggye — both in North Korea — fled to the South after the 1950-53 Korean War. Song graduated from Ewha Womans University and taught for nine years, while Lee graduated from Seoul National University and was posted to Amsterdam in 1972 by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency before launching their own trading company in 1975.
 
Their interest in the envoys began earlier. In 1988, during the Seoul Olympics, the couple attended a memorial service for Yi Jun, later holding a similar event in The Hague in 1991. Lee spent years combing archives, libraries and bookstores for any mention of Korea, uncovering items such as Yi Jun’s death certificate. From the activist’s granddaughter in Seoul, they obtained his handwritten resume and petition calling for the dismissal of a judge who had aided the Eulsa Treaty.
 
“There are some essential questions that need to be addressed,” Song said.
 
“One of them is, ‘Why were they not allowed into the peace conference? ’People usually respond emotionally — that Japan blocked them. But the records show that the meeting was for official diplomats and military officers from 45 countries. We had no power; the Eulsa Treaty had stripped us of it two years earlier. There is no peace without power, and we wanted people to see that.”
 
Before the pandemic, the museum drew up to 7,000 visitors a year, many traveling to The Hague specifically to see the exhibit. In fact, some 15 visitors dropped by the museum during the three hours of the interview, “more than usual because it's Saturday,” according to the couple. Most were families from Korea who paid an admission of 11 euros ($13) for adults and 7 euros for children. 
 

Hand-written letters by independence activist Yi Jun displayed at the Yi Jun Peace Museum in The Hague, the Netherlands [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
“We hope to one day have the reach of Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House, attracting not only Koreans but also Japanese visitors,” Song said. “There are already visitors from Japan studying history and law, which is impressive. We need more of them.”
 
Funding has come mainly from a 400 million won ($288,000) donation from the Federation of Korean Industries upon the museum's opening, a Korean government grant awarded around 10 years ago, and further support from various institutions for building repairs and operations. They refuse private donations to avoid unnecessary obligations or conflicts of interest.
 
“We think it was fate,” Lee said. “We never planned this from any point in the past — us living in the Netherlands, the purchase of this building or the running of this museum. We were pushed and pulled here. There were so many people we were grateful for throughout our journey.” 
 
Asked about the future, Song said that the museum is a national site of the independence movement and should not be monopolized by anyone. “It would be good if a young person came forward,” she said.
 

Yi Jun Peace Museum director Song Chang-joo, left, and her husband Lee Kee-hang, explain the history behind the museum in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo. [JOS VAN LEEUWEN]

 
“The conference the envoys tried to attend was, after all, a peace conference,” Lee said. “The 80th anniversary of liberation should be celebrated not just as freedom from another country, but as the foundation to become citizens of global peace.”
 
The bed in Yi Jun’s room, a faithful reproduction of the one from a century ago, makes it easy to imagine him lying there. The guest book is filled with emotional messages from visitors. But the couple remains composed.
 
“This isn’t about hating Japan or cutting ties,” Song said. “Our message to young people is that the goal is peace.”


Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY KIM HO-JEONG [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]