hankyoreh

Date of birth: Oct. 7, 1937

Date of the massacre: Oct. 2, 1966 (Nov. 13, 1966 by the solar calendar)

Description of the massacre: At the time, I was 29 years old. I’d gotten married and was living in a different village. The day before the massacre, a rumor was going around that Korean troops were coming to the village. My family remained there because they were worried about their belongings. When the Korean troops arrived the next day, they killed my mother Cao Thị Đạt, my three younger sisters and my niece/nephew. My father was shot in the stomach and the leg. Hearing the news, I went to the village and found the bodies of my mother and younger sisters. My younger sisters were Thị Hận (26), Thị Lai (24) and Thị Tuyền (12).

The Korean troops came to our village after first carrying out a massacre at Phước Bình, the next village over. I was told that it was a company from the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Division of the Marines, called the “Blue Dragons,” who were stationed in Mt. Tròn. The soldiers took the villagers to Dien Nien Shrine and slaughtered them there, with around 50 dying at that site. On a single day, 112 people were killed in my village. Phạm Thị Mẹo, an old woman who has now passed away, lost 11 members of her family. Later, she testified that the soldiers would shoot and kill any groups of three or more people. Many of the survivors didn’t dare to give their butchered family members a proper burial out of fear that the Korean soldiers would return. This is a source of abiding bitterness for Phạm Thị Tiên, who lost his/her mother and a younger brother.

On my family’s grave, I wrote “butchered by South Korean troops.” I wanted to let other people know about the anguish of losing my family members. After my loss, I went through a period of psychological difficulty. I had to take care of my father, who had been seriously injured. He continued to suffer the aftereffects of those injuries until his death, six years later.

What I want from Korea: Whether it’s the Korean government or some other Korean I’d like someone to help ease the pain of the survivors of the massacres and the families of the victims.