Korea's forgotten A-bomb survivors welcome acknowledgement from leaders
Wooden memorial plaques for Korean victims are placed near a nursing facility for Korean atomic bomb survivors in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province, in this July 19, 2018 photo. Korean atomic bomb survivors have welcomed President Yoon Suk Yeol's plan to visit the memorial monument for Koreans at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later this month. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Victims' representatives plan to visit Hiroshima during G7 summit
By Jung Min-ho
In a symbolic move for peace and harmony, the leaders of Korea and Japan ― Yoon Suk Yeol and Fumio Kishida ― said at Sunday's summit that they will visit later this month a memorial monument in Hiroshima established to remember
.
This August 2018 photo shows a memorial monument for Korean atomic bomb victims at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan. Korea Times photo by Jung Min-ho
Yoon and Kishida's joint plan for the Japanese host city of the upcoming G7 summit (May 19 to 21) has been welcomed by the Koreans whose lives changed forever on Aug. 6, 1945, when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Speaking to The Korea Times Tuesday, Shim Jin-tae, head of the victims' association in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province, expressed his gratitude.
“It took 78 years for a Korean president to acknowledge our existence on a public occasion. It's late, but better than never. I appreciate him doing so,” Shim, who was two years old on that tragic day, said. “This should be the beginning of their joint effort to remove the destructive weapon from the world entirely. I hope the two countries will work closely together for that important cause.”
More than 30,000 ethnic Koreans were believed to be killed by the bomb in Hiroshima while working at munitions factories and other facilities. At these sites, many were forced to work for the Japanese military when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule.
Hapcheon, a county where most of the Korean victims were from, remains as a place symbolizing their suffering, which has long been ignored by the governments of Japan, the U.S. and their own country.
This August 2018 photo shows the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. The building was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 to call for a nuclear-free world and world peace. Korea Times photo by Jung Min-ho
To promote a message of peace and call for more government support for the victims, Shim said a dozen representatives from the association will visit Hiroshima when the leaders of G7 member countries ― Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the U.S. ― as well as Yoon, gather there for talks.
“Today, the number of surviving first-generation victims stands at about 1,800. Before it's too late there should be a proper investigation for data and realistic support for the victims,” he said.
One of their demands is to build a memorial peace park in Hapcheon, so that the victims and the devastation from the nuclear weapons would be remembered.
In his gesture for rapprochement, Kishida paid his respects at the Seoul National Cemetery, where not only the Korean War dead but fighters for independence from Japan were buried, during his two-day visit to Seoul from Sunday to Monday.
Yoon and Kishida's visit to the memorial monument for the Korean atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima is expected to be another demonstration of improving Korea-Japan relations, which have deteriorated in recent years over historical issues such as wartime sexual slavery and forced labor.
The atomic bomb victims and Korean residents of the city spearheaded the establishment of the memorial monument in Hiroshima. After failing to get approval from the city government, they built it outside the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in 1970. Thanks to the efforts of the Japanese people to remember all the victims of the bombing, the monument was moved into the park in 1999.