New Netflix Series Spotlights Brothers Home of Busan.
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”Brothers Home” and “Seongam Academy” Inmate Documents Resemble The KSS (Korea Social Service) “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.
Posted to Paperslip on August 17th, 2025.
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New Netflix Series “The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea’s Tragedies” Features Brothers Home In Episodes 1 and 2.
There’s an excellent new series on Netflix called:
The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea's Tragedies
Episodes 1 and 2 focus on the infamous Brothers Home of Busan.
You can find everything we have written about Brothers Home on Paperslip using this Google trick.
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Notably, Brothers Home “Vagrant” Inmate Documents Bear An Uncanny Resemblance to The KSS (Korea Social Service) “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.
We have long suspected a systemic link between Brothers Home in Busan, Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan, and KSS (Korea Social Service) in Seoul. However, there is little tangible proof, given the scarcity of documents due to destruction of such evidence after the “discovery” of Brothers Home by the S. Korean public in 1987.
We have noticed since around 2020 when we first learned of S. Korea’s notorious Brothers Home concentration camp from a source in Korea that the documents for “vagrant” inmates resemble the KSS (Korea Social Service) specific document which we coined in 2021 as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.
Brothers Home was a major concentration camp in Busan, S. Korea which operated between roughly 1975-1987.
There is limited publicly known evidence of the ties between Brothers Home and Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan, but such evidence does exist. We believe that it was inevitable that children who were eventually adopted through KSS’ pipeline were sourced from Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan by way of Brothers Home.
Please see:
2019 “Hankyoreh 21” Article Links Brothers Home Victim To Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan
OhmyNews Article: “From Seongam Academy to the Chandra Case...State Violence Still Persists”
TRC confirms 31 children sent overseas for adoption through infamous Brothers Home
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Below:
Side By Side Images of A Brothers Home “Vagrant” Inmate Document And The KSS (Korea Social Service) “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.
Below: The image at lower left is a still / example of a Brothers Home document for a “vagrant” inmate born in 1983, from the excellent Netflix series: “The Echoes of Survivors: Inside Korea's Tragedies”. See the 52:12 mark of Episode 1 to see the original Brothers Home document.
A similar Brother Home document is featured in the original Korean article of a different, female Brothers Home former inmate linked here:
2019 “Hankyoreh 21” Article Links Brothers Home Victim To Nam Kwang Orphanage in Busan
See the image at the top of the original Korean article (whose English translation is linked above) here.
Below: The image at lower right is an example of a KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” document of a KSS Adoptee born in 1975.
Note the use of HANJA (an older mixture of Chinese and Hangul) text for the title of the document in both documents, and the use of HANGUL text for the body text in both documents. Even the fonts used are similar. Our guess is that the format of the Brothers Home document at left was originally created in the 1970s, when the use of Hanja may have been more prevalent. Today, the use of Hanja is practically non-existent, and few native Koreans can speak or read Hanja.
Indeed, according to ChatGPT, the Hanja text 入養兒童調書 at the top of the KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” (right) translates to: "Adopted Child Investigation Report". But we figured out in 2021 that KSS colloquially (in common language) refers to this document as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. Indeed, if KSS Adoptees did not know the name of this document nor how to specifically request it by name, KSS would not regularly tell Adoptees how to request it nor even that it existed. (We are aware that some KSS Adoptees who visited KSS in the past — especially before the Special Adoption Law was changed in 2012 — were sometimes able to obtain this document. However, it was not the norm from 2012 - July 19th, 2025 when KSS officially ceased all Post-Adoption Services.
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KSS Founder’s Ties to the former concentration camp “Seongam Academy” have been explored since 2020 on Paperslip.org.
Since 2020 or 2021, we have previously noted similarities between the KSS specific document called the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” with Seongam Academy documents as well.
You can find everything we have written about Seongam Academy on Paperslip using this Google trick.
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Below:
Side By Side Images of A Seongam Academy “Vagrant” Inmate Document And The KSS (Korea Social Service) “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.
Below: The image at lower left is a still / example of a Seongam Academy document for a “vagrant” boy presumably born in 1959, though the document date is 1972. This document is from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea (TRC / TRCK) 2’s 2025 report on Seongam Academy. Please see the TRC 2’s website for more info.
Below: The image at lower right is an example of a KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” document of a KSS Adoptee born in 1975.
Note the use of HANJA (an older mixture of Chinese and Hangul) text for the title of the document in both documents, and the use of HANGUL text for the body text in both documents. Even the fonts used are similar. Our guess is that the format of the Seongam Academy document at left was originally created in the late 1940s, when the use of Hanja may have been more prevalent. Today, the use of Hanja is practically non-existent, and few native Koreans can speak or read Hanja.
Indeed, according to ChatGPT, the Hanja text 入養兒童調書 at the top of the KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” (right) translates to: "Adopted Child Investigation Report". But we figured out in 2021 that KSS colloquially (in common language) refers to this document as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. Indeed, if KSS Adoptees did not know the name of this document nor how to specifically request it by name, KSS would not regularly tell Adoptees how to request it nor even that it existed. (We are aware that some KSS Adoptees who visited KSS in the past — especially before the Special Adoption Law was changed in 2012 — were sometimes able to obtain this document. However, it was not the norm from 2012 - July 19th, 2025 when KSS officially ceased all Post-Adoption Services.
*Please note: Given the fact that KSS Founder Kun Chil Paik (alternately: Baek Geun-chil / Paik, Kun Chil / 백근칠) was Vice President and later President of Seongam Academy in the late 1940s makes it slightly less shocking that Seongam Academy documents and KSS documents would share similarities.
However, when we first noticed this around 2020 or 2021, we were shocked indeed. It should be noted that Seongam Academy was perhaps not at its most notorious in the late 1940s under KSS’ founder as in the 1970s when it was better known as a hard core concentration camp for boys (by which time KSS’ founder had long since moved on from his position at Seongam Academy) — however, Seongam Academy was likely never a nice place to be for the boys who were imprisoned there.
Note that the HANJA document title font is nearly identical in the Seongam Academy document at left and the KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” document at right. The font looks like it could literally have come from the same printing company. It’s not as though anyone had computers back then.
Also note how the text pre-printed on both forms is in HANJA, yet the handwritten text on both forms is in regular HANGUL. It is as though the forms were created at an earlier point in history when Hanja was more prevalent — also Hanja would likely have been mainly used by the educated class, of which KSS founder Kun Chil Paik was definitely a member.
The key point is that the Seongam Academy and KSS forms share clear stylistic and visual similarities, possibly due to their shared (non-simultaneous) leadership under KSS Founder Kun Chil Paik.
