Photographed is Rhee Ha-na, the first defector to graduate from university in Japan. Photograph provided by Kim Hye-rim
■ To prevent painful memories from becoming lost to time
Travelling unaccompanied, a man in his 20’s from Higashi-osaka city joined the voyage to North Korea. He believed in the propaganda which boasted of the socialist North’s impressive development.
“I was filled with the hope that I would learn a lot and contribute to the revolution. The reality that I was met with, however, was a backward country where the people lacked everything, even an understanding of the revolution. It was a society with no freedom and I was unable to carve out a life for myself.”
After 50 years of disappointment, the man defected from the country, coming to live in South Korea.
Another man, now living in western Osaka, depended on large remittances from a Japanese relative before his defection. Along with 4 family members, he defected 15 years ago due to political problems.
Looking back on his life in North Korea, he appears quite rueful, saying, “I lived well in a big apartment.”
Another man, who returned to North Korea with his sister and brother when he was in middle school, now lives in Tokyo. He said, “My older sister was so shocked by the controlled lifestyle in North Korea that she developed a mental illness.”
Many of the returnees who defected to the South or Japan are now elderly. Some have passed away. There is not much time left, therefore, to record their stories and preserve the memories of their lives in North Korea.
※Last year, an NGO was launched for Korean-Japanese and Japanese to work together to preserve the history of the Korean-Japanese returnees.
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Editor’s notes on North Korean reporters
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