Austrian nuns become honorary Korean citizens for helping lepers

By Kim Rahn

Marianne Stoger

Margaritha Pissarek

Two Austrian nuns have been granted honorary Korean citizenship for their decades-long devotion to lepers on a remote island of Korea.

The Ministry of Justice granted medals of honorary citizenship to Sister Marianne Stoger, 82, and Sister Margaritha Pissarek, 81, at the ministry building in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday.

Pissarek was unable to come to Korea to attend the ceremony due to health problems.

Honorary citizenship is given to foreigners who contribute to boosting Korea’s national prestige or promoting national interests. This is the second time the honor has been given, following the first one to Guus Hiddink, former national football team coach who led the team to the World Cup semifinals in 2002.

The two nuns were each given a folding screen featuring 10 traditional symbols of longevity.

Graduating from nursing school in Innsbruck, Austria, Stoger and Pissarek came to Korea in 1962 and 1966, respectively, after hearing that nurses were needed on Sorok Island in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province, to help a colony of Hansen’s disease patients.

Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, affects the nerves and can cause deformities and skin disorders. Although it is not infectious one month after treatment is started, lepers were quarantined there during the Japanese occupation (1910-45). Even after the country’s liberation, more than 6,000 people were confirmed to have been sent there, facing forced labor and often sterilizations and abortions.

The two sisters took care of the patients for nearly four decades until 2005 when they returned to Austria. At that time they left only a letter in which they wrote that they worried that their advanced age was becoming a burden to Sorok residents, according to the ministry.

“We deeply appreciate their sacrifice for helping the lepers for that long period,” Justice Minister Kim Hyun-woong said.

Besides honorary citizenship, the two have received other citations and orders from the Korean government in 1972, 1983 and 1996.