He was kidnapped to North Korea and the family separated. PASSED 75 YEARS

by Andrea
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He was kidnapped to North Korea and the family separated. PASSED 75 YEARS

Min Young-Jae sees or hears anything about your older brother 75 years ago. He was 19 and she only 2 when, during the early days of the Korea War, he was kidnapped.

“We were known in the vicinity as a happy family,” the 77-year-old woman tells CNN, while her older sister, Min Jeong-JE, agrees with her head.

His days of peace were destroyed on June 25, 1950, when North Korea broke into the South. The three -year war would kill more than 847,000 soldiers and about 522,000 civilians on both sides and would separate more than 100,000 families, including Min.

After the war, the family kept the rusty doors of his house with open roof, hoping that the eldest would return one day. But over time, barbed wire was installed between the two Koreas and a modern apartment complex replaced the house.

Despite being 75 years old without a single word about or brother, Min and his brothers will continue to hope that one day they will hear of him. Or, if not Him, then your children or grandchildren.

A HAPPY FAMILY

The family lived in the village of Dangnim, nestled among green mountains in the western part of Chuncheon, almost 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of birds, water running and tractors beating.

It was also dangerously close to parallel 38, which divided the peninsula after World War II.

Min Young-Jae, the youngest of seven brothers, does not remember arguing with any of his brothers as he grew up; I just shared the tofu that the parents did, scowled in the stream and was taken to the lap by the older brother.

Beautiful, kind, and intelligent, Min Young-Sun was studying at Chuncheon National University of Education, following her father’s footsteps, the director of the Dangnim Primary School.

“His nickname was ‘Math Whiz’. It was excellent Mathematics and even colleagues called him ‘Math Whiz’,” says Min Jeong-JE, the fifth son of the family, talking about a name that evidences potentiality in that discipline.

A few days, the students went to home as he moved by train and by boat, asking him to teach mathematics, recall the sisters.

The sisters recall min Young-Sun as a loving brother. They picked up fish and splash in the nearby riberate, now covered with stands and weeds and almost without water.

“We grew up in true happiness,” recalls Min Jeong-JE.

Separated

Living near the border between the newly separated Korea – supported by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min’s family was one of the first to live the horrors of the Korean war.

When Kim Il-Sung’s North Korean troops broke into the country, Min Jeong-JE remembers seeing his grandmother running in tears, with a cow, shouting, “We’re in a war!”

“We all spread ourselves and hide in the mountains, because we were afraid. One day we hid the 4-year-old Young-Jae, we forgot to bring her back, because we had a lot of brothers. When we came back tonight, she was still even crying,” says Min Jeong-JE.

While the family was running in and out of the mountains, sheltering the northern troops, Min Young-Sun was kidnapped and taken north by her teacher.

“The teacher brought together smart students and took them [para longe]. It took several students, dozens of them. He took them north, “remembers Min Jeong-JE.

It is not known why the teacher will have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang has kidnapped South Koreans to reinforce their armed forces.

“People called the communist teacher,” continues Min Jeong-JE.

This headache followed another: the death of the second older brother. According to the sisters, he died of shock and pain, deeply hurt by his brother’s abduction.

“The pain was huge. Our parents lost two children … Imagine what the heart would be like to leave,” says Min Jeong-JE.

For his father, the pain of losing two children was overwhelming. According to his sister, he developed a panic disorder and had difficulty working for the rest of his life.

“I couldn’t go to the street, always stayed home. And as I was very shaken, I had difficulty living everyday. So our mother left [para trabalhar] And it suffered a lot, “explains Min Young-Jae.

The mother began to make a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning prayed for min Young-Sun, filling a bowl with pure water, as part of a Korean popular ritual, and leaving the first rice spoon served by the family on a bowl for a child she believed would return one day.

“She couldn’t change her house, so that her brother didn’t find his way to return home. She didn’t let us change in the house, not even the doors. That’s how she waited for him … We waited so long and time has passed,” says Min Jeong-JE.

The pain continues

Min Jeong-JE was 8 years old when the war began, but witnessed a brutality that would leave many adults in trace.

“So many children died. When I went to Rio to wash my clothes, from time to time I saw bodies of children floating,” he recalls.

He remembers having seen North Korean soldiers to align people in a field of barley and shoot them with submachine guns. “Then, one by one, they fell into the barley field.”

“I saw too much. At one point – I didn’t even know if the soldier was South Korean or North Korean – VI beheaded remains.”

The Min Family is one of many families destroyed by war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting for news from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is currently one of the world’s most pruded states, and it is virtually impossible to travel between the two countries.

Years after the Korea War, the two Koreas discussed the organization of meetings for separate families that were identified on both sides through the Red Cross and both governments.

The first meeting took place in 1985, more than 30 years after the signing of the ceasefire agreement, and the annual meetings began in 2000, when many of the victims of war firsthand were still alive, but were occasionally interrupted when tensions increased on the peninsula.

As soon as the two governments agree on a date for reunion, one of the two Koreas selects families, giving priority to the elderly and the closest family members, and then shares the list with the other, which will check the family on their side to confirm the list of about 100 members.

The selected families will meet in a specifically built office for meetings in Mount Kumgang, North Korea.

The min brothers filed a request to the Red Cross at least five times and signed up on the South Korean government list as a separate family. But there has never been any news about the brother’s whereabouts on the other side.

Over the age of 75, the brothers grew up, married and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother persist.

Worse yet, the annual meetings of separate families have been interrupted since 2018, after the summit’s failure between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi while war victims are aging and die.

Kumgang’s resort was dismantled by the north in 2022, also in the middle of tense tensions.

But the brothers, following their parents’ will, still hope to be able to contact Min Young-Sun, who would now be 94 years old.

“My brother Young-Sun has passed 75 years,” concludes Min Young-Jae to a CNN chamber, taking his glasses to recognize his sister’s face.

“It’s been a long time since we broke up, but it would be very grateful if you were alive. And if you are not, I would like to know your children. I want to share the love of the family, remember the happy days of the past … I love you, thank you.”

She and her brothers recall her kidnapping brother singing her favorite song, “Thinking of My Brother,” a children’s song about a brother who never returned.

“My brother, you said you would come back from Seuda Seda,” sings Min Young-Jae, while her sister cleans the tears.

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