Korea collection
Specific peace support – how did Swiss soldiers experience their mission in Korea? The Library Am Guisanplatz BiG Korea collection provides insight into the work and daily routine of the Swiss peace mission in Korea.
Swiss military personnel have been stationed in Korea since 1953. At the end of the Korean war, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland and Czechoslovakia took on the task of monitoring the ceasefire between North and South Korea.
To achieve this, these neutral states formed two commissions: the NNSC (Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission) and the NNRC (Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, 1953-1954).
Journals, films, photo albums, slide collections
Switzerland’s involvement in the Korea Mission is the oldest peace-keeping mission of the Swiss Armed Forces and even today Switzerland has five NNSC delegates engaged in confidence-building between the two Koreas.
In 1954 former Korea Mission delegates founded the Korea Association, whose archive has been housed at the Library am Guisanplatz since 1999. Private documents, diaries, films, photo albums and slide collections portray the operations of Swiss officers in Korea, and also record personal impressions and journeys to remote parts of Asia.
The Korea collection inventory is not listed in the Alexandria search portal. However, the Korea collection catalogue can be consulted on the library premises.