Before Obama’s visit, Korean Hiroshima victims gather, hoping for apology

Posted on : 2016-05-23 17:23 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
More than 70 years later, victims can vividly recall the day “their world turned upside down”
A picnic for South Korean atomic bomb survivors - called the “Gathering to Improve Welfare” - held in the shade under the Namjeong Bridge on the Hwang River
A picnic for South Korean atomic bomb survivors - called the “Gathering to Improve Welfare” - held in the shade under the Namjeong Bridge on the Hwang River

On May 21, the picnic for South Korean atomic bomb survivors - called the “Gathering to Improve Welfare” - was held in the shade under the Namjeong Bridge on the Hwang River, in Hapcheon County, South Gyeongsang Province.

Every spring, the survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan gather here to share news and to get to know each other better.

At one time, more than 600 people came to the gathering, but as people have passed away over the years, the number of participants has shrunk. Today, there were around 300 people at the picnic.

The atmosphere at this year’s picnic was more boisterous than ever because of the news that US President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima and a special act to support South Korean atomic bomb survivors on May 19.

“My father was living in Japan, and he died when the atomic bomb was dropped,” said Yoon Il-nam, an 84-year-old woman at the picnic. “It won’t make any difference now, but we should receive the apology that we’re due. The victims are here in Hapcheon, so I have no idea why the American president is going to Hiroshima instead of coming here.”

“I’ve heard that Korean atomic bomb survivors are going to Hiroshima to see the American president. I guess that’s what they have to do in order to get an apology,” said Lee Chang-boon, an 88-year-old woman whose older brother was killed in the atomic blast.

Hapcheon County is called the “Hiroshima of Korea” since nearly 70% of Korean victims of the atomic bomb were from the county. As of the end of last month, 620 of the 2,494 atomic bomb survivors in South Korea today were living there.

“Most people from Hapcheon who were sent to Japan as forced laborers during the colonial period went to Hiroshima. They say that there were so many people from Hapcheon in Hiroshima during the 1940s that you didn‘t need to ask a Korean where they were from,” said Shim Jin-tae, 74, head of the Korea Atomic Bomb Victim Association’s Hapcheon branch.

The atomic bomb survivors that the Hankyoreh met at the picnic were indignant that weak people like themselves had been forced for decades to carry on a fight that was really the government‘s responsibility.

“The National Assembly and government are rotten to the core. Tens of thousands of Koreans were either killed when the atomic bomb hit or were beggared and barely managed to return to Korea alive. But for the past 70 years, the government has neither asked the US and Japan for an apology nor asked for compensation. Korean atomic bomb victims just had the bad luck to be born in a weak country,” said Kim Do-sik, an 81-year-old man who lives with a younger brother, aged 77, at the Hapcheon Welfare Center for Atomic Bomb Victims.

Many think that the reason the Korean atomic bomb survivors have not been given the spotlight for more than 70 years is because of the belief that Japan had surrendered to the Allies - leading to Korea’s liberation - as a result of the US dropping the bomb.

Each year, the media pays attention to the atomic bomb survivors around Aug. 6 but then loses interest when Liberation Day rolls around on Aug. 15. The attitude is that, since Korea was liberated, it is in no position to declare whether the US was in the right or wrong when it dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.

Another reason may be the nuclear umbrella, which is part of South Korea’s alliance with the US. If South Korea demands that the US compensate atomic bomb survivors and attacks the US for using nuclear weapons on Japan, it undermines the rationale for using the nuclear umbrella in the event of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

“I’m really glad that the special act to support atomic bomb survivors that my son Hyeong-ryul worked so hard on was passed. What angers me is that the bill that was passed is all package and no substance. When the next session of the National Assembly is held, the first thing they should do is revise the act,” said Kim Bong-dae, 79. Kim‘s son founded the Association for the Sick Children of Korean Atomic Bomb Survivors and served as its first chairman until 2005, when he died of congenital immunoglobulin deficiency, a condition related to his parents’ exposure to radiation, at the age of 35.

The Hapcheon Welfare Center for Atomic Bomb Victims, which opened in Oct. 1996, offers a communal living arrangement for atomic bomb survivors who have lost their spouses or who are in a similar predicament. It is the only such group home for atomic bomb survivors in South Korea.

The entire cost of construction, amounting to 4 billion yen (US$36.45 million), was paid by the Japanese government through the Red Cross, while the South Korean government is footing the bill for running the facility. The facility can accommodate up to 110 people, and there are currently 103 living there.

Behind the welfare center is a shrine that contains spirit tablets for 1,055 deceased victims of the atomic bomb. The shrine was erected in 1997 by Sun Society, a Japanese civic group.

Every year on Aug. 6 - the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima - a ceremony is held for the spirits of the departed. Through 2010, the cost of the ceremony was also covered by Sun Society.

Born in Hiroshima, Kim Do-shik was in the third year of elementary school in 1945 when the atomic bomb was detonated.

“I‘d submitted my transfer form to the school on Aug. 3 since we were moving, and I had spent a couple of days at home when the atomic bomb went off on Aug. 6. The elementary school I had been attending was obliterated. If I hadn’t submitted my transfer form, I would have died at school along with my younger brother, who was in the first grade,” Kim said.

After returning to Korea, both of Kim’s parents died of cancer. His older sister and youngest sibling are also being treated for cancer, which Kim believes is a result of the lingering effects of radiation exposure.

“Japan was wrong to start the war, and the US was wrong to drop the atomic bomb,” said Kim Il-jo, an 88-year-old woman who has been at the welfare center since 1999. “Before I die, I really want to receive an apology from them acknowledging that they were wrong.”

Kim was born in the Japanese city of Kyoto and moved to Hiroshima at the age of two. In 1944, she married a man from Hapcheon that she met in Hiroshima, and the bomb fell the next year.

She vividly remembers what happened: “I was doing the dishes after breakfast when all of a sudden there was a flash and a huge explosion. I thought the world had turned upside down.”

Kim’s house tumbled down, and her entire family was buried in the collapse. Following the light, she managed to crawl out of the rubble. In all directions, dead bodies were strewn along the streets.

“I thought I was just lucky to have survived,” Kim said.

“All of the atomic bomb survivors who had severe radiation exposure have already died, and now the only ones left are those who had less radiation exposure but who are suffering from various diseases of old age. No matter what happens, we must never forget the pain of the atomic bomb survivors,” said Kang Su-han, secretary-general of the welfare center.

By Choi Sang-won, South Gyeongsang correspondent

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

 

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