hankyoreh

Date of birth: Mar. 3, 1959

Date of massacre: Oct. 25, 1966 (lunar calendar; Dec. 6, 1966 by solar calendar)

Description of massacre: These are my family members who were killed by South Korean soldiers: my grandmother Đỗ Thị Quảng (then 60 years old); my mother Nguyễn Thị Niêm (28); my two younger sisters Huỳnh Thị Lem (five) and Huỳnh Thị Luốc (three); my two nephews; my aunts Bùi Thị Ngải, Bùi Thị Chi, and Bùi Thị Dung; my three cousins Huỳnh Đông, Huỳnh Nga, and Huỳnh Hậu; and two female relatives both with the same name, Huỳnh Thị Thương and Huỳnh Thị Thương.

My father had died the year before the massacre, and our family members were living separately. I was seven at the time and living with my mother’s father in a strategic hamlet near the village (Strategic hamlets were special resettlement villages, which had barbed wire or bamboo fence surrounding them to separate themselves from the Vietcong in the name of the pacification of the Delta); my mother and two younger sisters had stayed behind in our village. So I didn’t witness the massacre first hand. Later, I would hear from my grandfather and neighbors that our family members had been massacred; they said the South Korean troops assembled residents by passing out candy and other things. I couldn’t go to the village after the massacre because it was too dangerous. My uncle survived the massacre and gathered the bodies; it was only later that I would see the humble family grave where they were hurriedly buried.

The South Korean soldiers also set fire to my family’s house in Bình Hòa and all their possessions. The massacre left me a war orphans, and I went on to live with my mother’s father and aunt in Bình Thời commune, about 10 kilometers from Bình Hòa

commune. Just as I was finally learning to read, I had to quit school because of my family’s financial situation. I can remember being yelled at by my father when I was a boy for crying and looking for my mother.

What I want from Korea: Years have passed and it’s now part of the past, but the survivors and family members like me continue to suffer the pain and wounds from that day. I hope South Koreans will show the least bit of conscience and work to help heal the wounds of victims in Vietnam.