WEBZINE ACC

June 20 was the World Refugee Day.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that 120 million people were
forced to leave their homes because of war, violence, persecution, etc.

The number of refugees, which had been climbing upward for the last 12 years,
increased explosively because of conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and West Bank, and Sudan.*

About 74 years ago, the Korean Peninsula witnessed a long line of refugees as well.
The Korean War killed millions of people and created 100,000 war orphans
and 10 million “isan gajok”, or people who were separated from their families.

War is defined as the use of force by a state or state-like belligerents, but the weapons of war are aimed at families around the world. Civilian casualties in war are called “collateral damage,” but families are the ultimate victims because every soldier killed, wounded, or missing in action is someone’s child or parent.

Does anyone know this person?

At 22:15, June 30, 1983, 30 years after the armistice, the entire Korea wept as they witnessed a dramatic reunion.

KBS aired “Finding Dispersed Families,” the first and the largest TV program to reunite members of dispersed families, delivering stories of pain and sadness that nameless individuals had to experience in war and division.

In the film “Ode to My Father,” Deok-soo (played by Hwang Jung-min) is reunited with his sister through the KBS program ”Finding Dispersed Families,” 30 years after they were separated during the Hungnam Evacuation. (Naver Film)

The morning after the first broadcast, the area around KBS and Yeouido Square was packed with people trying to apply for the show. The walls of the KBS headquarters building as well as the streets, squares, and trees were covered with posters searching for separated families. As 100,000 separated families gathered in Yeouido Square, eagerly awaiting their reunion, the people of Korea shed tears as they watched the reunion on TV.

KBS Busan, June 1983. Nobody plastered their poster over another person, for they thought that everyone else must have missed their families as they did. (Asia Culture Museum Archive, Photography by Jung Jung Hwae)

In this special live broadcast, aired for 453 hours over 138 days,
100,952 separated families applied for appearance, 53,536 were broadcast,
and 10,189 families were reunited.

As people shed tears together over the stories of separated families, the wounds of 30 years of war were healed, and the stories of separated families became a vivid testimony to the victims of war.

The original tapes of the KBS special live broadcast “Finding Dispersed Families” and more than 20,000 other materials have been inscribed into the Memory of the World registrar, making them available to the world. **

A “generation without farewell”

But sometimes, the wounds left by war were too great for one encounter to mend. 30 years created a massive chasm that could not be crossed in a single leap, creating lives that intertwined together, separated, and broke off into parallel trajectories. ***

In the film “Gilsotteum”, directed by Im Kwon-taek, the protagonist Hwa-yeong (played by Kim Ji-mee) leaves her reunited former lover and her son to save her present family. Her former lover (played by Shin Seong-il) and her lost son watch Hwa-yeong leave. (screenshot from the Korean Film Archive YouTube channel)

After the first round of registrations were submitted in 1988, the number of individuals who registered themselves in the Separated Family program was about 130,000 as of April 2024. 90,000 of them have already passed away. Among the surviving 40,000, 70% of them are above the age of 80, and every month, about 300 to 400 individuals on average pass away. The generation that has lived through decades, hoping for one more chance to meet their family members, is disappearing.

The generation that comes after may be a “generation without farewell,” a generation without a home to return to, a generation without true encounters amid countless encounters, and thus a generation without goodbyes. But we hope that the new generation will create their new beginning and new meanings in a world without war. ****

Go to the Asia Culture Museum archive, Jung Jung Hwae’s photography of dispersed families.