Place of Birth: Bongsan, Hwanghae-do, North Korea
Last Address: 155-4 Nuha-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Date of Abduction: August 20, 1950
Place of Abduction: Home
Education: Department of Politics and Economics, Waseda Univ.
Occupation: Journalist of Dong-A Daily
Career: April, 1947 - Journalist of Dong-A Daily, 1949 - Chief of Inquiry Division of Dong-A Daily, 1951 - Editorialist of Dong-A Daily , 1965 - Director of Dong-A Daily, 1968 - Chief Editor of Dong-A Daily, 1977 - President of Dong-A Daily

Date of Interview: April 21, 2005
Place of Interview: President Hotel, Seoul
Interviewee: Lee, Dong-uk
Interviewer: Sa Yu-jin


Path of Abduction and Escape
Abducted at home in Nuha-dong, Seoul on August 20 ⇒ Chungwoon Elementary School ⇒ Yeoncheon, Pocheon, Cheorwon (on foot) ⇒ Wonsan (on vehicle) ⇒ PyeongYang (on train) ⇒ Sunan Airbase, PyeongYang ⇒ Escaped Cheongcheon Prison Camp in Gujang, Gaecheon-gun




Q. What was your occupation at the time of the abduction?
Answer: I worked as the Chief of Inquiry Division of Dong-A Daily.

Q. What were you doing when the Korean War broke out?
I could not help but think that Seoul was too dangerous to stay. I decided to head south, but I needed more money. So I went around borrowing money and returned home in evening. However, the broadcasters at that time told us not to worry, saying that the U.N. Coalition Forces had obtained Ilwon as an operation area. They told us to stay in the house. On hearing that, I thought 'if the U.S. Army is there for us, we won't have to flee Seoul.' I was foolish.

So I slept in the house. Yet at around 2 a.m., there was a loud sound of bombing. It was the sound of dynamites, blowing up the Han River Bridge. There was a local vigilante around that time. When I went outside, shocked at the bombing sound, people from the vigilante told me that the North Korean Army was already in Seoul. The bridge to south was destroyed and there was no way to escape from the North Korean Army. I went to my in-law’s house in Cheongyangni and hid there.

Before the war, Jang Jae-gap, the Chief Editor of Dong-A Daily, and I used to gather at the house of Lee Yeon-gil, the Chief of Communications Division of Dong-A Daily, which was in Palpan-dong. After the North took over Seoul, Mr. Jang visited me several times. I didn’t want to see him at that time, but he insisted talking with me. So I went to Mr. Lee's house in Palpan-dong to see him. There, Mr. Jang told us that he confessed to North Korea. I told him, "Why bother when the U.S. Army will recapture Seoul in a couple of weeks. You'll only be branded as a Communist once they come in. I have my own plans." However, he insisted that I confess to the North, saying "You can't risk waiting till the last moment to come. Confess now or they will kill you once you are caught." It was obvious that he had already promised the North that he would make people like me confess. I had no choice but to say "I'll confess." at the moment. I left the house, thinking I still could dodge North Korean officials.


Q. When did it happen?
I think it was late August. I managed to go uncaught for about two months since June 25. On my way back home after meeting with Jang Je-gap, I thought I would be captured if I went to the house in Cheongryangni. I also wanted to change my clothes because it was soaked with sweat, so I went to my house in Nuha-dong. My parents greeted me and said, "People had come to arrest you in the early yesterday morning. They left and did not comeback. We think they won't come back again, so spend the night here and leave tomorrow." So I stayed home that night. But they came back in the early next morning to get me. There was nothing I could do.

But I was lucky. If I was taken to the Jongno police station, I would have been hopeless, because it means that the Political Security Bureau is directly involved in my capture. But I was taken to the Cheongwoon Elementary School, instead. I was kind of relieved. I spent two nights there. Those who had been dragged there like me were mostly middle-aged and old. I was in my 30s and one of the youngest. I recognized two people in the crowd. One was Park Gye-ju, a novelist who wrote "Pure Love" and the other was Park In-chang, a gym teacher at Kyunggi Girls High School, who was at least 10 years older than me. Other than the two, the rest were strangers. Some were there because something they had done displeased the leftists in their neighborhood. Leftists at that time were mainly small store owners, barbershop owners, plasterers, and carpenters.

After spending two nights there, we left the school and walked, following the people who had dragged us there. I had no idea why they took us because most of us were over 40 and wouldn't be much help to them. We walked toward somewhere around Yeoncheon or Pocheon. We walked and walked. How far? All the way to Cheorwon! We walked such a long distance with only one rice ball as a meal for a day. From Cheorwon to Wonsan, we moved by car and from there to PyeongYang, we took a train on the Pyongwon line. Compared to the long walk before, it was quite comfortable. In PyeongYang, I got a skin disease. My whole body was very itchy and it was terrible. But there was no medicine in PyeongYang. One of those who were taking us told me that I could get the medicine when we arrived at the final destination. I didn't believe him.

Our final destination was a concentration camp near the Cheongcheon River. To get there, we moved by car only at night. We passed Sunan Airbase in PyeongYang, and went to Gyechun-gun. If you go little further, you can get to the Cheongcheon River. But we didn't go that far. We were put in the large concentration camp, a hastily-built building to lock up the abductees like us and train them as North Korean soldiers in a couple of months. When we entered, North Korean soldiers said that we were useless because we were too old to be put into a battle as soldiers.

By that time, my skin disease got so bad that I almost looked like a leper. My whole body was covered with white blisters. It was quite disgusting. I asked the North Korean soldiers for medicine, but they didn't have any. They said, "You stay in the air-raid shelter over there because your disease can be contagious to others." Even officers avoided me, afraid of catching the disease.

So I stayed there, just taking my meals in a corner and trying not to make contacts with others. At that time around, my skin got very itchy. It became more severe in the shelter, because I slept on rice straws. It became unbearably itchy staying inside the shelter so I usually spent most of my daytime outside. A lot of combat planes passed by, bombing here and there. I thought that the North Korean Army would give in soon. I stayed there for about a month.

In mid-September, the bombing got worse and the North Korean soldiers started to retreat. Few soldiers started off on foot. I thought to myself, ‘they’ll give in soon.’ And by mid-October, lines of soldiers were retreating. Commissioned officers also fled on their military jeeps. Some of them even yelled at walking soldiers for blocking their way. I could feel the presence of the UN Alliance Forces from their anxiety and thought that I would be a free man soon. Around that period of time, my symptoms got even worse.

The shelter I first went was too hot for me. There was another air-raid shelter at a nearby graphite mine, which was relatively cooler and cleaner. So after two or three days, I stayed there alone. One day, I woke up and felt a strange silence. Feeling odd, I went out for breakfast to the other shelter and found everyone there were gone. All the people who were in the shelter near by the camp had been taken by the North during the night. All the foods were gone as well. The soldiers must have missed me because I was all alone in the other shelter. I didn’t even notice them leaving.

I felt so relieved and escaped from there. By the time I was out, there was not even a single North Korean soldier in sight. The ROK Army was already there, tracking the North Korean soldiers. I walked and walked and came across a ROK military truck. I asked for a ride, and the soldiers drove me to PyeongYang. The soldiers had to go to a different place so I walked all the way to Hwangjoo from PyeongYang. My mother’s families were living in Hwangjoo, so I was safe from then. You know, after all my skin diseased saved my life. If it weren’t for that, I couldn’t have escaped the abduction.

During my abduction, I looked into various things in the prison camp and found out that the North Korean commissioned officers had no idea what Dong-A Daily was. If they knew I was a journalist, they would have treated me harshly. Instead, they kept me with some plasterers and small shop owners. No wonder they didn’t interrogate me. If they knew about me, they wouldn’t have let me out of the prison camp, even if I had contagious skin disease. They would have always monitored me. Instead, they neglected me, saying “You are such a nuisance. I don’t even want to be near you.” Thanks to the skin disease, I was relatively free.