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Marlies Gabriele Prinzl

“I don’t remember his name, but don’t you think that South Korean lawmaker went too far when he argued against raising the Sewol ferry?” the woman said.

One of the people accompanying the Sewol victims’ families during their three-day UK visit from May 10 to May 12 was Marlies Gabriele Prinzl, 36, from Austria.

Prinzl, who is in a doctoral program in translation at University College London, has been diligently attending every event related to the Sewol tragedy since she heard about it in May of last year. She frequently shows up for the Sewol protests that are held in Trafalgar Square, London.

There is a simple reason why Prinzl is interested in something that happened so far away even as she frantically prepares for the defense of her recently submitted doctoral dissertation, which analyzes English-language translations of “Death in Venice,” the novella by German author Thomas Mann.

“I’ve always liked Korea,” Prinzl said. “I’m also interested in human rights issues. So it was natural for me to get interested in the Sewol incident. Since I like photography, too, I wanted to help out in some way when the victims’ families came here.”

Prinzl even accompanied the Sewol victims’ families when they traveled to Liverpool to meet the families of victims in the Hillsborough disaster on May 12. She expressed her dismay at the hostility some South Koreans have shown for the students at Danwon High School and other victims of the Sewol sinking.

“Is there a problem about parents who have lost their children wanting to know why the accident happened? Perhaps I’m just able to say this because I’m not Korean and I don’t have a stake in any of this, but it just seems so inhuman to attack parents when they’re grieving,” Prinzl said. She added that she hopes an independent investigation will be held to get to the bottom of what happened.

Given Prinzl’s interest in South Korea, the frequent stories in the news about major disasters have prompted some unpleasant questions. “I know about the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store [in 1995], too. I find myself wondering whether there’s a tendency in Korea to value money over people,” she said.

What about the South Korean lawmaker who upset this budding scholar from a foreign country with her innocent smile? That would be Rep. Kim Jin-tae from the Saenuri Party, who appeared in Newstapa’s video on the first anniversary of the Sewol tragedy saying that the victims’ families “aren’t the only people in Korea.”

By Kim Ki-tae, contributor based in Liverpool

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]