hankyoreh

members of the group Sakpung talk about their experiences as forced laborers in the former Soviet Union. They and thousands like them were captured by the Soviet army and detained as Japanese prisoners of war after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

On the uncomfortably hot afternoon of July 29, 10 elderly gentlemen in their mid-80s gathered at a coffee shop in downtown Seoul. In 1944 and 1945, they were sent by the Japanese army to work in the northeastern provinces of China or on the Kuril islands as forced laborers. Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, the men were captured by the former Soviet Union army and detained as Japanese prisoners of war for three to four years.

The name of the monthly gathering is Sakpung, which means “a cold wind from the north” in the Korean language. Together, the men share the ordeals they experienced in Siberia and remember their pain. At last month’s meeting, the number of participants was a bit higher than usual because the topic of discussion was how to apply for government compensation for victims of forced labor during World War II. One of the men, Jeong Won-gu, came from Goryeong, North Gyeongsang Province, and Kim Hak-beom, who lives in Muju, North Jeolla Province, sent his daughter-in-law to the meeting because he was sick.

Sakpung was formed by six victims of forced labor in December 1990. In September of that year, South Korea established a diplomatic relationship with the former Soviet Union following a summit in San Francisco between former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The establishment of diplomatic ties with the former Soviet Union prompted these victims of forced labor, who had been shying away from talking about their time in the former Soviet Union, to turn their private gathering into an official one.

Statistics vary on how many Koreans were detained by the former Soviet army during that time. According to data from a Russian Navy captain named Galitski, who publicized the data in the magazine “Military History” in September 1990, the number of Korean prisoners of war held by the former Soviet Union was 7,785.

Data compiled by the former Soviet Union’s interior ministry says there were a total of 10,206 Korean prisoners of war, of which 71 are dead. The ministry’s data may include Koreans who were transferred from North Korea as pro-Japanese collaborators and activists who opposed a plan to put the Korean Peninsula under a trusteeship.

Along with Japanese prisoners of war, the Koreans who were employed as forced laborers were sent to concentration camps after a cargo train journey of several days in length. While some were put into concentration camps built during the rule of the tsar of Russia and under Joseph Stalin, those arriving in remote areas with no facilities had to build the concentration camps with their bare hands while facing cold, hunger and heavy labor.

According to another report by the former Soviet Union’s interior ministry, the number of Japanese prisoners of war held during that time was 609,448 with a death toll of 61,855. While it is rare for so many soldiers to have become prisoners of war, the more unusual thing is that the death toll exceeded 10 percent. The reason why the death rate for Japanese POWs was higher than that for Korean POWs is because the average age of those serving in the Japanese army was higher because it conscripted people under 45 years of age into the military to cover its shortage of personnel at the end of World War II.

Korean forced laborers were mobilized for various tasks such as logging; production of bricks and cement; construction of railways, mines and power plants; loading cargo, construction and repair of homes; and harvesting of crops. About 70 to 80 percent of those who died did so in the first winter as temperatures fell to 40 degrees below zero (centigrade). Without any appropriate winter clothing, the forced laborers grappled with chronic food shortages and lack of medical services. One forced laborer managed to live on 300 grams of bread and oatmeal a day. While there was reportedly no abuse carried out by the Soviet soldiers, they themselves were denied meals if they failed to meet their daily labor quotas.

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