Choe Sang Hun has a well-written narrative of one woman’s wait for her husband who was abducted into North Korea and has not been seen the Korean War. Apparently at least 83,000 Koreans were abducted by the North during the war. Of Sung Kap Soon’s life before her husband disappeared into the north, she remembered:
(my husband and I) walked together through the night. It was snowing but she said she wanted to walk forever. She also remembered — as she did in her diary entry on her 58th wedding anniversary in 2001 — how the forsythia was in full bloom along the walls of a hospital as she and Ha drove home in a taxi from their April wedding.The family lived in a two-story house in Seoul and ran a flour mill on the ground floor. “We were a happy family,”
The article in its entirety is here.
3 Comments
Not only has the Roh government done absolutely nothing to win the release of these abducted people, their families are sometimes put through the torture of a temporary “reunion” where the North pretends they voluntarily went to the North and the South plays along.
It’s far worse than you think, michael. The South Korean government actually agreed to help the North Korean government prevent any defections during the reunions.
Here’s a separated Korean family story the likes of which you don’t see too often.