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🇰🇷 South Korea /Culture & Society

Registering separated-family records as global heritage could test inter-Korean ties

From Hankyoreh · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources New plan
  • A South Korean committee is seeking UNESCO Memory of the World recognition for records from separated-family reunions held between 1985 and 2018.
  • Organizers want civil society to lead the effort and build an archive of letters, photographs, videos, audio recordings and reunion documents.
  • The project faces uncertainty because North Korea has rejected framing South Koreans as fellow countrymen and has not yet agreed to participate.

A black-and-white photograph sent from North Korea in 2004 shows a separated family member in military uniform, standing beside his wife and a young couple. For his older brother in the South, it offered a rare glimpse of relatives he had not seen since adolescence.

The photograph accompanied a reply to Hong Eung-jun, born in 1934, who had asked the Korean Red Cross to help find his younger brothers. North Korea reported that their parents had died in the 1960s and 1970s, but said the two brothers, Eungsu and Eungsam, were alive and living with their spouses. It also invited Hong's family to visit Pyongyang at a convenient time.

Those personal records are now part of a campaign to place documentation of separated families on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. The initiative covers materials created during 21 reunions between 1985 and 2018, including letters, photographs, video and audio recordings, applications for reunions, and records confirming whether relatives were alive. Its scope could extend beyond South Korea to the Korean Peninsula as a whole and to third countries such as China.

The archive registration project could become an important litmus test showing how inter-Korean relations move forward.

— Lee Jang-heeThe committee's co-chair described the proposed UNESCO registration as a test of future inter-Korean ties.

The South-North Separated Families Association formed a promotion committee on March 3 and is organizing a task force for the application. Lee Jang-hee, an emeritus professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and co-chair of the committee, said civil society should lead the project so it can continue through changes in inter-Korean relations and South Korean governments. He said the campaign aims to create an archive of the families' pain and make the importance of peace on the Korean Peninsula a value shared internationally.

The effort faces a major obstacle in North Korea's doctrine of two hostile states, which rejects treating South Korea as a fellow nation. Organizers therefore need both an argument that separated-family work can coexist with that position and a North Korean partner. They plan to proceed first by collecting records held by association members while maintaining unofficial contacts. Lee called the registration effort a possible litmus test for the future direction of inter-Korean relations.

The most effective way to resolve the division issue is human exchange.

— Lee Jang-heeLee argued that direct exchanges are needed to address the concrete problems caused by Korea's division.
About this summary

Originally published by Hankyoreh in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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