7 years of indignation and hardship
Memories of Korean War still vivid
Miserable lives of 150,000 family members of civilian abductees
P.2, Chosun Daily, Jun. 26, 1957

It has been 7 years since the Korean War, but so many people are still suffering. Among them are 150,000 or so family members torn from approximately 27,000 civilian abductees kidnapped by North Korea. The Korean Red Cross has found that about 60% of them, or 90,000 people, were categorized as extremely poor, so it is unimaginable how devastating it must be for them to be facing poverty with their families torn apart.
There is no aid program exclusively established for these families, so they are struggling against poverty every day without any idea of the fate of their abducted family members. Here are some of theirstories and recollections regarding the Korean War.

○- “I forgot everything because I was so busy trying to make ends meet,” said Park Jong-ok (43), who lives in Sajik-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. She fell ill due to shock and sadness when her husband Choi U-sik (44/merchant) was abducted by North Korea right before Seoul was recaptured on September 28. She had to earn a living for her three children, and she even took up needlework the year after in order to educate them. She ground her teeth as she recalled the moment when she scrambled to hide her then-17-year old daughter from Security Bureau officers. The youngest son, now 10 years old, does not even remember what his father looks like, but he is determined to bring him back. Park has to sew one jeogori (Korean traditional jacket) per day to pay the rent of 4,000 Hwan. Since she cannot afford to educate all her children, she decided to send only her youngest son to school. She said she is very much resentful of the situationcreated by the Korean War.

○- Choi Byeong-ho (18), the eldest son of thevice-director of a rightist group,the Korea Young Men's Association,Choi Byeong-du (45), confidently said that he dreams of constructing an ideal village with his brothers. But he shed tears like a helpless child when he thought about his father, who never made it back from Yesan in South Chungcheong Province, to which he was evacuated during the retreat. His elderly mother sold their house in Seoul and raised poultry to make a living, but the whole family became penniless when feed costs increased and the previous year’s flooding swept everything away. Although the lives of his 6 family members are down to him, Byeong-ho is never discouraged as he has inherited the strong determination of his father. Meanwhile, his 23-year-old sister sighed and said that she is dispirited about the future even though she sews every day for a living.

○- Kim Jeong-ae, wife of Ewha Woman’s University Professor Lee Myeong-hyeok, is relatively well-off compared to other family members of civilian abductees. Her five children got scholarships for school, and with the help of her husband’s relatives she gets by without much difficulty.
To live up to the virtue of her husband, Kim started a mending business with a number of war widows, based on American charity and five sewing machines. She smiled and said optimistically that, even though she was worried that the sales volume was too small to maintain the business, “seeing my children grow up so fast makes me long for the day of unification when I can reunite with my husband.”