Young activist unearths, brings forgotten heroes back to life

Jung Sang-gyu poses with his book “Forgotten Heroes, Independence Fighters.” Courtesy of Jung Sang-gyu

By Park Jin-hai

• Published Feb 21, 2019 6:14 PM KST
• Updated Feb 21, 2019 6:21 PM KST

By Park Jin-hai

Jung Sang-gyu, author and social activist, is an odd man out. People of his age have grown increasingly nonchalant to history as they are busy honing foreign language skills and pursuing higher education.

Jung, who studied mathematics and economics at the University of Oregon, renounced his permanent U.S. residency status and chose to join the Air Force to fulfill his military duty. In 2014, while he was serving as an officer, he began to study independence fighters, and a year later launched the “Independence Fighters App.”

“I was no different from others before. As an expat student living in the U.S., I had lived fiercely constantly trying to prove myself, competing with other students,” said the 31-year-old Jung who is a working committee member for the Presidential Commission on the Centennial Anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement and the Korean Provisional Government.

He was determined to come back to his home country for his sick father and aging mother, but his comrades he met at the frontline division changed his entire life.

“In my division, there were soldiers from families of independence activists including the great-grandson of Kim Gu who led the Independence Army. From them, I heard stories about their families unlike I had ever heard before. I was so moved by how they gave their lives for the people and the country under Japan's colonial rule,” he said.

“At the same time, I was so ashamed of myself, having lived without knowing of their sacrifices and noble spirit. As an Air Force officer myself, I felt inspired by all those independence fighters as the great officers who lived before me, with my heart filled with overwhelming emotions. I thought not only me, but all others should learn about their great deeds.”

Then he came up with the idea to make a mobile application. His “Independence Fighters App” gives the push alarm service to its over 330,000 users on commemorative days like the date of their birth/death along with stories of those forgotten heroes. It also provides information on memorials, museum and statues of those heroes in a user's vicinity.

While he was preparing for the service, trying to find information about those activists, he learned how those heroes were forgotten, Jung said.

“There are some 14,000 names the government registered as independence fighters. But, going over school history books over the past 10 years, only the same 20 to 25 names of independence fighters appeared repeatedly with no addition of new names. Learning more about those nameless heroes, I couldn't help but think that although they are anonymous, their deeds were no lesser than well-known heroes, say, Yu Gwan-sun and An Jung-geun.”

Through his application, Jung says he reached many descendants of independence fighters who want to reclaim their parents' or grandparents' honor.

“Under the current system, those now aged sons and daughters should bring the documents that can prove their dead ancestors' participation in the independence movement. It means they have to travel to Japan and China, accompanying translators, and collect related documents on their family history. That is almost impossible for financial reasons and their old age. So they end up writing petition letters to presidents and mayors for help, but nothing is done on the part of government,” he said.

To be registered with the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, they again should meet some unilateral requirements including minimum three-month imprisonment.

“Mentioning such reasons as lack of budget and personnel, the government didn't even try to make a joint committee that can study and verify those many forgotten independence fighters. Using networks of people from independence families, I'm planning to launch a private entity in the field of the independence movement that works like VANK, an NGO conducting public diplomacy.”

History speaks to today

By adding those heroes who had been given less or no spotlight on his mobile application, Jung says his feeling of indebtedness has been relieved to some degree.

“What those families are grieving the most is that with all their ancestors' selfless devotion to the country and its people, nobody knows who they were and what they did. Through my app, at least 330,000 users get to remember their names and send thank you messages for their patriotic deeds.”

He published a series of two books titled “Forgotten Heroes, Independence Fighters” in 2017 and 2018, unearthing 100 heroes and introducing their stories.

He says knowing those heroes not through history textbooks but as people can drive changes from people. “People regard themselves that they know An Jung-geun. How much would they know? The history books only state his activities over the span of just three years around his assassination of Hirobumi Ito. They don't know about him as a teenager, his friends, his loved ones and his dreams,” he said.

“In fact, he was a humane young man with a pure heart who had dreamed a beautiful dream. Without knowing him in detail, people tend to deify him and brush him off as one born great. But once knowing what kind of person he really was, then people sympathize with him and guess what inner conflicts and worries he would have had as a person, before making the final decision to gun down the Japanese statesman. When people realize that he is not a born hero, but became a hero as the result of many altruistic choices, they can reach the conclusion that they, too, can become heroes. That is the way history makes changes in people living today.”