The region of Kimhae-kun which was located in the south-east part of the Korean Peninsular belongs to the area which was not occupied by the army of North Korea during the Korean War. People in this so-called unoccupied region had the experiences whic...
The region of Kimhae-kun which was located in the south-east part of the Korean Peninsular belongs to the area which was not occupied by the army of North Korea during the Korean War. People in this so-called unoccupied region had the experiences which were different from people in the other occupied regions during the war. The aim of this paper is to examine the war victims and explain why and how they should be killed during the Korean war, based on the fieldwork including the interviews with the bereaved.
According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ROK(TRC) built on the 1st of December 2005, the 79 victims in Kimhae and its vicinity during the Korean War were registrated by around 73 bereaved families. This number is far from the real number of the victims compared with the number known until now. It is said generally in the academic world that there were at least 800 victims killed in Kimhae and its vicinity during the war.
TRC presented the 2007 project for the investigations of civilian massacres during the war in Kimhae and its vicinity. We entered into this project with members of Suk-dang Academy Institute of Donga Universty for 5 months from July till December of the year.
This article is reconstructed on the basis of the report of 2007 investigation on the civilian massacre in Kimhae and its vicinity during the Korean War. It shows demographic information on the 173 interviewees and the 283 victims, the reasons for killing, the various aspects of the violence. As a result of that investigation we estimated the number of victims from 848 to 858 victims.
Among them, there were 8 teenagers and 3 women, and the rest were almost men in the prime of their lives from 20s to 50s. The most of the people were killed by the name of the member of Kukmin-bodoyonmang or pro-communists, but there were also many people who were sacrificed to the simple private revenge. Even some people did not know why the should be killed. These kind of ‘red-hunt’ policides were carried out by the police or soldiers including the member of CIC, or local right wings.
The political topography of the Kimhae region was extremely changed after the war. Newly emerged right wings became the new ruling class of the local society under the prevalence of anti-communism. The bereaved of victims have kept silence unwillingly and could not help enduring the psychological pains and political-social damages. To explain what it means in the history of modern Korea should be one of our unevitable tasks soon or later.