Public and Private: Negotiating Memories of the Korean War

Abstract

In February 2014, pictures of elderly Koreans, North and South, reunited after more than 60 years of separation, saturated the international media. The images captured the emotional moments when long-divided family members met again at an official reunification gathering. Some tightly embraced their missed relatives and burst into tears; a 92-year-old South Korean man danced with his arms stretched out, beaming with joy. The majority of the 83 citizens of the Republic of Korea (ROK) who collectively traveled to the meeting place at the Geumgang Mountain resort in North Korea were in their seventies or eighties. Several of the aging attendants faced health troubles coping with the strenuous journey and unsettling situation; some had to be carried to the event under medical surveillance. Still, these participants invited to join their lost relatives among the 178 attending North Koreans were the lucky ones, chosen through a lottery system of approximately 71,000 South Korean applicants who have been on a waiting list to meet their kin residing in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Time is working against the unconsidered candidates. As New York Times journalist Choe Sang-Hun points out in his online article “Amid Hugs and Tears, Korean Families Divided by War Reunite” dated 20 February 2014, an average of 3800 list members pass away each year without being granted the wish to reunite with their families.