Oral+History

Interview with my grandparents about the Korean War (1950-53)

=GRANDFATHER= Name: Hee-seung Kim Age: 73


 * //When the Korean War broke out in 1950, how old were you? Where were you?//**

I was a 7th grader (age of 13) and I was in Dajeon.


 * //How did you hear the outbreak of the war?//**

It was on the radio. Back then, there was no TV so every news were from radios. It was also announced publicly on the village radio.


 * //How did you feel?//**

I wasn’t extremely scared right after I heard about the war. But when I heard about the North Korean troops heading down to Dajeon, I finally became extremely scared. I guess that was around July. Soon I was busy preparing for the flee to southern parts of Korea.


 * //How were the surrounding situations like in those days?//**

There were bombings everywhere. Schools were bombed, fired, or plowed that I couldn’t get any type of education. I only fled places to places. Market places were also bombed, that I couldn’t buy food. My family had to share a stored food.


 * //What did you bring when you went fleeing?//**

My parents packed large amount of food. We hid in the mountain near Oak-Cheon, and stayed in my cousin's house. When the Chinese troops invaded Korea, I fled to Dagu by train on about January 4th. My family starved for days and days.


 * //Did you fight in the battlefield?//**

No. I was too young to be in the battlefield. I was only 13, and I remember people three or four years older than me being forced to join the army. Prior to the outbreak of the war, my brother was already serving his military duties. He was killed in the war. I believe it was from the battlefield in Gangwon-do. Our family received the letter from the army saying that he died. Well, it wasn’t only him. Thousands of innocent lives were killed in the battlefield.


 * //Were there any terrible sceneries you saw during the war?//**

People dying from bombs and bullets were comparably bearable than rotten corpses on the ground. There were dozens of corpses just lying on a common street. They were those who died from an extreme hunger or a bombing.


 * //Were their enough medical care?//**

Well, my uncle was hit by shrapnel. He was bleeding so badly so that an immediate health care was needed. However, almost no hospitals survived from massive bombings. There were not enough medical care. So my family just carried the uncle to my house. My mom did some of the medical treatments on him. My uncle still has the scar on his legs.


 * //Any final words?//**

There shouldn’t be any war as possible. During war, thousands of people die. It is very tragic to people who died. Korea should nourish many soldiers and strengthen the army. In that way other nations won’t look down on Korea and go to war against it. Korean army should work with American army to keep the nation safe.

=GRANDMA= Name: Han-nim Guak Age: 71

The war broke when I was in an elementary school. I was a fourth grader back then. I experienced two refuges. One was in summer, and the other was in winter. In summer, my family fled to Nami-bay in Choongbu. In winter, my family fled to Goeum-dong in Choongbock. I don’t think I saw nor experienced many cruelty of the war. My family didn’t particularly starve because of my brother. He was used to sell cigarette or a lighter to the american soldiers, and earned a lot of money in response. The ironic part was that my family couldn’t do much with those money because the market places were all crushed.

Reflection

Textbook only depicts the war’s surface. All the events - bombing, fleeing, and starving - hadn’t had much impact until I heard orally from my grandparents. While I was studying the Korea War, I mainly focused on events like switch of political power and supply of soldiers from other nations. I knew that thousands of people were living in a harsh condition, but somehow I didn’t consider those importantly. Also, those events sounded very unrealistic to me.

Hearing those events directly from my grandparents were shocking. All the things my grandfather experienced especially pierced into me. His words provided me more than just a picture or words describing what the war was like. His valuable experiences provided me a distinct visual of the Korean War. Since the speaker was not a stranger but my grandfather, I could really identify with what he was saying. Even though he was responding with a dull voice throughout the interview - because the war was decades ago - I could imagine the fear and starvation he faced. When he mentioned about his brother, I could imagine his mother’s devastation after receiving the death letter from the army. When he mentioned there shouldn’t be any death caused by war, I could see that he was keeping his brother in his mind. I sympathized with his point of view that there shouldn’t be a war in the future.

Before this project, I only knew that my grandparents lived through the Korean War. I didn’t know all these harsh experiences they had to go through. Most importantly, I realized that what students memorize about the Korean War weren’t really important to contemporary civilians. Students memorize the election of Syungman Rhee, but to the contemporary civilians they were too busy to take care of their starvation first. The daily lives of the people were much more harsh than I thought. It wasn’t just a day of starvation. It was a continuing starvation that lasted for several months. If one of my grandparents died during the Korean War, then I wouldn’t have born in this world, as Kaila Su Young Kim. I appreciate their survival and I love them very much.