hankyoreh

Date of birth: Aug. 19, 1945

Date of massacre: Feb. 24, 1968

1

Description of massacre: Every year on Jan. 24 (lunar calendar), the association of family members of Hà My massacre victims holds a collective service to commemorate the victims of the Hà My massacre. On Feb, 24, 1968, I too lost my mother Lê Thị Thoại (then 46), my younger brother Nguyễn Văn Đạt (six), my aunt Phạm Thị Sự (50), and my cousins Nguyễn Văn Tâm (eight) and Nguyễn Thị Xí (two). My younger sister Nguyễn Thị Thanh, 11, and my cousin Nguyễn Văn Định, eight, were seriously wounded by a grenade thrown by South Korean troops. On that day, the South Korean soldiers herded my family and neighbors into an air raid shelter at our home and threw a grenade in it to massacre them.

Twenty-three years old at the time, I was able to survive by hiding in another air raid shelter around 50 meters away from the house. When I emerged from the shelter that evening, I had to take my younger sister and cousin to the hospital and collect the remains of my family members.

Later on, I was captured by South Korean soldiers and held in a POW camp before being released. It was only after the Vietnam War ended in 1975 that I returned to the village.

The psychological pain of my family members and relatives being killed by the South Korean soldiers was enormous. At a local people’s committee meeting in 2000, I was selected as the family members’ association liaison team leader, and a team of 11 liaison team members and I investigated the Hà My massacre. The most inhuman incident the villagers remember was the South Korean troops at the time using two bulldozers to rip open the victims’ graves and displace the bodies.

What I want from Korea: The villagers are connected in different ways to the 135 victims. Some people lost one family member; others lost many. In some cases, entire families were massacres, leaving no one to light incense for them. I can still remember the sight of a baby sitting on its dead mother’s belly nursing at her dry breast. I feel that the younger generation of Koreans needs to know about these horrific deaths. I also hope those deaths will be remembered in Korea.