When the iron curtain descended between North and South Korea at the start of the Korean War in 1950, roughly 100,000 families were cut off from each other. My wife’s grandmother was among those who reached the South but would never set eyes on their family who lingered behind again. By fate or by choice, she was separated from her family members, in all probability not understanding she would almost certainly never set eyes on them again. It’s likely she won’t see them before she passes and they might not even still be alive.
True, family reunions have been held between the two countries since the war. But the amount of families that have been granted the opportunity is a tiny proportion of the total- approximately 16,000 families. At the same time, for the other less fortunate families, there have been no phone calls, no letters, and no emails. My wife’s grandmother doesn’t even know if her brothers and sisters are still living.
Tensions between the two nations suspended the family reunion program for a year and nine months. As talks resume this week between the two countries, Koreans are hopeful that family reunions will start again as soon as October. Yet, only 100 families are likely to be involved.
I wonder regarding this woman who has been alienated from her family for so long. I wonder what it must feel like to realize that your siblings are a few hundred miles away or to not know if they are even alive. For all she knows, they may have all died decades ago. She has moved on with her life. She lives in the countryside of South Korea. She grows her own groceries and hikes a mountain each day. She has parented five children who have progressed on to their own lives in South Korea and in the U.S. I speculate if, with all the intervening years, her memory of her family has dulled.
Similar histories came out of the USSR during the Cold War, especially for Germans and Prussians who unexpectedly found their homelands divided and their kin driven apart in the wake of World War II. Luckily, those who lived to see the collapse of the iron curtain did have an opportunity to join up with family and reconnect their scattered families.
So, is there hope for Koreans of a enduring reunion with their loved ones divided from them by an tyrannical government? The iron curtain fell more rapidly in Europe than anyone could have supposed. Maybe someday in the near-future, Kim Jong Il will suddenly release his grip on his nation and open his borders. Maybe they will stop menacing the world with a nuclear war they can’t possibly win. Maybe their populace will be able to receive the truth about their global neighbors, not fear-mongering half truths but unrestricted truth.
Until then, short family reunions are the only hope alienated Korean families have of restoring severed bonds.
About the author Marcus Varner earned his MBA in Marketing and a BA in English with a Creative Writing emphasis from Brigham Young University. He specializes in writing about genealogy, family issues, researching your ancestry, and current events that affect families.
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