hankyoreh

Russia.

By Song Jang-hee

Every August, South Korea gets swept up in a wave of celebration for Independence Day. Though remembering the story of Liberation is a joyous occasion for Koreans, there are some people for whom it is nothing more than a catchphrase. These are the Korean returnees from Sakhalin Island.

Sakhalin’s tragic reputation is as familiar to Koreans as its name. It all started 100 years ago under Japanese colonial rule, one of the darkest days in the nation’s history. In 1938, during its occupation of the Korean Peninsula, Japan declared that it was commencing a national wartime system, part of an effort to gear up for the Pacific War and an invasion of China. It issued an order of full national mobilization of Korea in order to plunder its human and material assets. It began drafting Koreans to work in frigid Sakhalin, where they suffered under harsh working conditions to build military facilities: coal mines, airfields, highways, railroads. Some 70,000 Koreans were taken to the island. Half of them ended up perishing in a foreign land from the arduous labor. When the war ended in 1945, South Korea was liberated, but 40,000 draftees and their descendants ended up stranded on the island after the Japanese government banned their return and unilaterally stripped them of their nationality. Gradually, the victims passed out of the historical consciousness.

When South Korea established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1990, discussions began on repatriating the Sakhalin Koreans, with the South Korean and Japanese Red Crosses playing pivotal roles. Between 1997 and this year, a total of 2,900 first- and second-generation Sakhalin Koreans took up residence through the country’s 19 regions, where they live side-by-side with South Koreans today.

How has it been for the Sakhalin Koreans returning to their homeland at their advanced age? There has been talk of various support programs to assist them in settling: apartments offered by the central and local governments, receiving Basic Livelihood Benefits, additional living expenses. But their lives here have not been easy.

As the years go by, there are fewer and fewer Sakhalin Koreans returning to South Korea, and the Sakhalin communities here are getting smaller as returnees pass away from cancer or age-related illnesses. It is a terrible tragedy: after finally realizing their dream of coming home, they spend only a short time here before succumbing to disease or living out the rest of their days in a hospital room. The sight cannot help troubling the other Sakhalin Koreans who witness it.

In 2012, a Sakhalin Korean committed suicide in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province. The cause was depression. Sakhalin Koreans have little contact with their neighbors; they are older, unable to work a regular job, and tend to live with each other in apartment complexes. They don’t associate with other residents in the apartment senior citizen center. Instead, it‘s a daily routine of staying cooped up inside or sitting in small groups drinking at the local convenience store.

From my experience seeing the lives of Sakhalin Koreans while working at a senior citizens’ welfare center for two years, I have the impression that South Korea treats them as outcasts. This is a country where no one, apart from certain welfare centers and volunteer groups, realizes they are living in our midst, or who they even are. It matters that the government pays living expenses and healthcare for them, but people cannot live by bread alone. There needs to be a program for offering them the emotional support they need to live their dreams as full-fledged citizens of South Korea.

We need to extend a warm embrace to these people who suffered the sorrow of a country lost and returned to live with us 70 years after being carted off to a land of darkness and ice. Until we care for them, South Korea will never be truly liberated.

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