동북아역사재단 2022년 06월호 뉴스레터
- Park Doh, Novelist
United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
On February 2, 2004, I visited the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the forest near College Park, Maryland, Washington D.C. I shivered as I went through the ‘Korean War’ file in the Photograph Resource Center on the 5th floor. On the file, the horrors of the Korean War remained intact.
I was a six-year-old boy when the Korean War broke out in 1950. I spent that summer terrified in a refugee burrow by the roar of fighter jets and bombing, the sounds of artilleries and machine guns heard from far and near. Dead bodies scattered like silkworms in mulberry trays on mountains and fields, cities and villages that have collapsed without a single building standing as a result of carpet bombing by US fighters... These scenes remain in my memory like a nightmare, either vividly or vaguely. At the sight of the photos archived at NARA, the faint memories from then returned to my mind as if they were yesterday. Piles of corpses scattered all over the mountains and hills of refuge, a procession of refugees running off helter-skelter with their possessions on their backs or heads to avoid the shells that US fighters recklessly poured down like defecating goats, a child with a bulging belly on the road abandoned and crying, refugees rolling their feet unable to get on the retreating transport ship from Heungnam Pier, refugees crossing the destroyed Daedonggangcheolgyo (Railroad Bridge) as though they were acrobats to flee southward, refugees crossing the frozen Hangang River with their luggage, shantytowns in Yeongju-dong, Busan, refugees waiting endlessly for the southbound train at Suwon Station...
At that moment, I wanted to take all these photographic images and show them to a generation who did not know the horrors of the Korean War. Fortunately, the materials are allowed for scanning at the center. With the help of Park Yoo-jong (the youngest grandson of President Park Eun-sik of the Provisional Government of Korea), who came with me, we looked through hundreds of thousands of photos, selected some of them, and brought them with me. After returning to Korea, Nunbit Chulpansa published a photo book called 『Indelible Images』 on the anniversary of the war on June 25, 2004. When this photo book came out, the media made it their headlines, and the readers showed great support. In response to the undeserved support, the photos that I could not see at NARA glimmered in front of my eyes. I visited NARA for the second time (November 2005), third time (February 2007), and fourth time (October 2017) since then, three times more altogether, staying in the United States for 80 days to select over two thousand photographs related to modern Korean history (mainly to the Korean War), and returned to Korea with them. I chose 100 scenes from them and published 『100 Scenes of the Korean War that Made Me Cry』 (Nunbit Chulpansa, 2017) with the vivid experiences of older writers who personally went through the war such as Kim Won-il, Moon Sun-tae, Lee Ho-cheol, and Jeon Sang-guk. I felt I could vividly see and hear what happened at that time, like flowers embroidered on silk.
Three Months in Communist Occupation of Seoul Kim Won-il The night air raids were particularly severe in August. We could not turn on any light or cover any window when darkness fell. We even had to cook and eat dinner before sunset. At night, US reconnaissance planes covered the skies of Seoul. We had to put the portraits of Stalin and Kim Il-sung, distributed to each house by mincheong (youth union), on the walls of the room. At night, I saw the searchlight from a reconnaissance plane sweeping over the portraits. One night, I heard the sound of shells falling nearby and stones pouring on the tin roof of our house. I went out the next day to see what happened, and the house was gone, and only a huge pit remained. Neighbors said that a young man, who had been hiding to avoid the draft, was cooking rice before fleeing out of town, and the light was caught by the plane and bombed. |
Tragicomedy amid the Korean War Lee Ho-cheol Just as we were burying the corpses of the war dead in the pit we dug in the valley below the ridge to bury the dead, an old soldier, who was just placed in the mess, was coming up with an ammunition box full of rice balls around his shoulder. I asked just to be sure, “See if you know any of these dead soldiers,” The old-new recruit’s face suddenly turned white, and he said, “Squad commander, it is my son. He was the fifth-generation only son. What should I do for my family?” Another gang of new recruits was coming up the hill. |
The Korean War I Experienced Jeon Sang-guk It snowed a lot, particularly in Gangwon-do in January of that year (1951). So-called en-masse migration on snow continued for a long time. My family also loosely buried the household goods under the kitchen floor and joined the refugees. We could not walk more than 20 li (roughly 8 km) daily in the snow. We felt hungry regardless of the horrors of war. Hunger was another fear of war. Fleeing in the winter during the January Fourth Retreat, I cried in cold and hunger in the progression of refugees who had left everything behind to survive and made that unhesitating flow toward the south. |
Shot on Refuge Way, Story of Boksil
I was six years old when the Korean War broke out. My family lived in Gumi, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and packed our luggage in a hurry while listening to the procession of refugees surging down from the north like a high tide and to the sound of artilleries firing. Since my first and second aunts lived next door, we left together. Like other refugees, men carried their belongings on an A-frame and women on their heads, and we went south to cross the Nakdonggang River. However, the communist army had already occupied the Nakdonggang river and blocked our way.
“People of South Korea, go back to where you lived before you are bombed by the US imperialist fighters.”
My family had no choice but to turn around right in front of the Nakdonggang River. As we were passing an apple orchard in Gwangpyeong-dong, we underwent an air raid by US fighters head-on. Refugees threw away their belongings and ran to the orchard. Adult men climbed the apple tree and held on to the tree trunk like a cicada, while the women and children lay flat on the bean fields between the apple tree stumps, waiting for the air raid to end. I was getting up in a bean field to watch the bombing of the jets, unaware of the might of the US fighters, and my grandmother hit the back of my head. After about thirty minutes of noisy air raids, the dead bodies of refugees were all over the place. Fortunately, my family hid in an orchard and survived. My family repacked our ox cart and household items and went to Jagalteo, a village above Seongi-dong in a valley on the right side of Geumosan Mountain. However, many refugees had flocked to the village and already occupied all the empty rooms. My family had no choice but to make a temporary shelter by the river in Seongi-dong. Of the family of fifteen, half were children, and three of them were my age. Without knowing what fleeing was, we had fun catching minnows by the stream or roasting and eating potatoes during the day as if we were on a picnic. But when we heard the sound of airplanes, we quickly ran into the cave in fear, put our heads in the wall, and waited for the air raid to end. The US B-29 bombers came loaded with bombs and dropped them all over the place like a goat defecating. This was the so-called 'carpet bombing.'
At night in the refuge, I trembled, scared of the wolf's cry. At the time, mountains were swarmed by wolves and foxes. Adults made children sleep in the middle and kept a night watch. People were scarier than wolves. At night, security forces with guns came to the refugees' beds and threw light on people's faces with a flashlight to see if soldiers or police were hiding. One night, as they were getting closer to our family's refuge, the second aunt's dog (Boksil), that followed along, barked wildly. Then they pulled the trigger towards it. “Yip!” Boksil disappeared into the dark with that scream. However, the next day, Boksil came to our family’s bed in the middle of the night with a limp. My family was happy and took turns hugging Boksil that was whining. Blood clotted on a rear leg as if a bullet had grazed it. Aunt tore the bed sheet and wrapped the wound on Boksil's leg and said,
“Boksil, my dog! Thank you for finding me.”
Then Boksil wagged her tail wildly and gave itself to aunt, still whining.
Memoir of the Korean War
While visiting the United States, I was the first to show up at NARA and the last to leave. I searched through and collected thousands of materials related to Korea every day. I also visited the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, in southern Virginia, twice to collect photos from the archives there. I had to eat decades-old dust every time I opened up the materials stored there, but there was also the joy of finding the truth of past history.
The
scene of a 15 to 16-year-old North Korean prisoner of war under interrogation
looked like a mischievous, naughty boy who was called to the school office
while playing pranks in the classroom and was being scolded by a teacher. The
scene where the UN forces POW guards sprayed DDT all over the prisoners of war
to eradicate lice with a spray gun in front of the tent barracks of the POW
camp was like watching a TV show called
I often came across many photographs showing the war dead. They were soldiers of the ROK Army, North Korean Army, UN Forces, or the Chinese Army that fell to the ground like fallen leaves in the mountains and fields. Some of them were from the horrific massacre of civilians in Jeonju, Jinju, Daejeon, and Hamheung. I offered a silent tribute when I found pictures of corpses tied up with wires. Most of these gruesome massacre photos did not contain accurate records of the perpetrators in the captions. It seemed that neither side was innocent regarding the massacre because war turns even an average person into a beast. The souls of those corpses must still be wandering in the other world.
Occasionally, there were also moving scenes in the pile of pictures. They included a scene where a girl, with her younger brother on her lap, is studying in a class held on the playground after the classroom was burned down due to the war; a scene of two boys talking friendlily under the eaves of a run-down thatched house; and a scene where girls wearing New Year’s dresses playing neolttwigi (Korean seesaw) even during the war. The children in the photo were in shabby clothes, but for the cheerful look and bright smiles on their faces, they did not look like children going through a war. As such, Koreans must have accomplished the ‘Miracle on the Han River’ from the ashes of the post-war period because they kept hope amid such hardships. These photos once again confirmed the strong potential of the Korean people. One of the most moving pictures I have seen was the scene of a man leaving for refuge, carrying his blind wife on an A-frame. It was the culmination of the couple's beautiful love. After seeing the photo, I could not take my eyes off it for its sacredness for a while.
A single photograph can also turn the tide of history. I hope that the photos I have collected at NARA serve as a memoir of the Korean War and a stepping stone for Korea on the path to peaceful reunification.
동북아역사재단이 창작한 '사람 목숨이 파리 목숨이었던 시절의 이야기 - NARA에 수장된 ‘Korean War’ 이미지들' 저작물은 "공공누리" 출처표시-상업적이용금지-변경금지 조건에 따라 이용 할 수 있습니다.
