First identification of a Jeju 4·3 victim who went missing outside Jeju

Ko Eunkyung, Research and Investigation Office

+++ Baek Yeo-ok puts a name tag on the urn of her father-in-law Kim Han-hong.

“I am offering this as your daughter-in-law, on your deceased son’s behalf.”

Baek Yeo-ok made this poignant, low-pitched comment as she put a name tag on the urn of Kim Han-hong, whose remains returned to Jeju after 74 years have passed since he went missing on the Korean mainland.

On Oct. 5, 2023, a briefing on the late Kim’s case was held at the Jeju 4·3 Peace Education Center located in the Jeju 4·3 Peace Park. Kim is the first to be identified among the innumerable Jeju people who were taken to other regions in Korea and remain to be confirmed on their whereabouts. The briefing on Kim’s identification drew even more attention and tears from the audience than the previous events.

Pilot project for the DNA testing and identification of remains exhumed outside Jeju

Remains of 413 victims exhumed, 141 identified and the other 273 remaining unidentified. These figures relate to the results of the Jeju 4·3 Victims Exhumation and Genetic Identification Project as of July 2023. Since the exhumation of the remains began in 2006, efforts to discover the Jeju 4·3 victims who are unaccounted for have continued in various parts of Jeju Island, including the current Jeju International Airport. Based on the investigation of alleged burial sites and the reported testimonies, the project has found 413 human remains so far.

After the historical turmoil swept over Jeju Island seven decades ago, an estimated 3,678 Jeju residents went missing (as of March 2023). Including the victims failed to be reported, the number of the unaccounted-for Jeju 4·3 victims is likely to reach 4,500. Allegedly, those who may have gone unidentified after being forced to leave Jeju Island are estimated to surpass 1,700 people, while it is not easy to exhume or identify them.

+++ Investigators check the remains enshrined in the Sejong Municipal Charnel House.

The unearthing of remains in areas other than Jeju have been carried out by relevant municipalities, adding to the difficulties, such as the regionally specific methods of identifying the remains, as well as the time-consuming consultation with local governments and pursuit of consent from the victims’ families on collecting DNA samples from the exhumed remains. For this reason, many of those families whose loved ones went missing while being outside Jeju are often forced to give up hope. Recognizing this problem, the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation and the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province established a plan to promote the Jeju 4·3 Victims Exhumation and Genetic Identification Project, starting late in 2022.

In order to implement the pilot project, the first step was to select the areas for exhumation and consult with the related local municipalities. The largest number of human remains that had been buried in off-Jeju areas were excavated from Gollyeong-gol, a desolate mountain valley in Nangwol-dong, Daejon Metropolitan City. Soon after the outbreak of the Korean War, prisoners of Daejeon Prison and civilians suspected to be leftists in Daejeon and Chungcheongnamdo Province were massacred in Gollyeong-gol by the military and the police. With an estimated 1,800 to 7,000 victims, the area is notoriously referred to as the “world’s longest mass grave.” Many of Jeju residents who were sentenced to serve jail terms in Daejeon Prison by a military court during Jeju 4·3 are believed to have been mass murdered there.

In 2007, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission took on the investigation into the case, followed by the exhumation of victims’ remains. Up to now, remains of 1,441 victims have been found and are enshrined in the Sejong Municipal Charnel House.

The Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation and the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province worked to collect DNA samples from the remains by hosting several consultation meetings with the Daejon Dong-gu District Office, the Institute of Korean Prehistory, the Bereaved Families Association for Victims from Gollyeong-gol Sannae in Daejeon, and the Support Group for Unresolved Past Events. On Jan. 3, 2023, they finally obtained the consent of the bereaved families association, paving the way for the DNA sampling of the remains enshrined in the Sejong Metropolitan Charnel House.

Samples started to be taken from the remains on Jan. 11, led by Prof. Soong Deok Lee and Sohee Cho in the Department of Forensic Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine. Park Keuntae, director of the Ilyeong Cultural Heritage Institute also joined the project to analyze the conditions of the exhumed remains. The team of experts inspected the exhumation sites and remains, selecting some 200 of them to be sampled. This process was witnessed by Yang Jeong-sim, head of the Research and Investigation Office at the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation, Ko Eunkyung, a research associate in the same office, and Jeon Mikyeong, president of the Bereaved Families Association for Victims from Gollyeong-gol Sannae in Daejeon, as well as officials from the Transition and Litigation Management Division of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The selected remains were transferred to Seoul National University, followed by the genetic identification of more than 70 of them that were deemed to be in the best condition for sampling. The DNA testing compared the genes of the remains with blood samples collected from victims’ families in Jeju or other regions.

+++ Late Kim Han-hong’s family members mourn as they enter the Arrival Gate of the Jeju International Airport carrying Kim’s remains.

On Aug. 10, 2023, after seven months have been passed since the pilot project began, the Seoul National University’s Department of Forensic Medicine requested the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation to collect additional blood samples concerning a victim who had a high probability of identification. The foundation narrowed down the candidates to a specific person based on the proving documents and found the contact number and address of the victim’s family on the list of blood sample donors.

‘Year of blood sampling: 2018 / Blood sample donor: Kim Moon-chu / Victim: Kim Han-hong / Relationship to blood sample donor: Father’

However, it turned out that the phone number listed no longer existed. The foundation’s investigators visited the reported residence but only to see the site empty. With the cooperation of the Bukchon Community Center, the investigators identified the current address of the supposed family of the deceased victim, visiting one of those who could provide additional blood. On Aug. 11, 2023, the blood was collected from the victim’s grandson at Cheju Halla Hospital in Jeju City and immediately transported to Seoul National University’s Department of Forensic Medicine for genetic identification. After two weeks had passed, the victim’s identity was finally confirmed, the first in the pilot project. It turned out that the remains belonged to Kim Han-hong, a Jeju 4·3 victim who went missing while imprisoned in Daejeon Prison.

Long-awaited return home after 74 years

Kim Han-hong (born in 1923) was a native of Bukchon-ri, a northeastern coastal village in Jocheon-myeon, Jeju City. During Jeju 4·3, the victim had been hiding in a distant field from his neighborhood to escape the armed guerilla forces and the counterinsurgency forces until he turned himself in at the end of 1949 on the rumor that those turning themselves would be set free by the military. He was then sent to the detention facility established in the former site of Jeju Distillery, a factory that used to be run by the Japanese Oriental Development Company across from the current Jeju City Coastal Passenger Terminal. The late Kim Moon-chu, the victim’s son, was told during childhood that his grandmother had visited her son who had been confined in the detention facility. Kim Moon-chu grew up fatherless and spent his youth in Incheon, settled back in Bukchon-ri when he married Baek Yeo-ok. After getting married, he learned that his father-in-law (Baek’s father) also died due to Jeju 4·3. The couple visited the former site of Daejeon Prison and the memorial ceremony held at the massacre site of Gollyeong-gol several times. While searching for his father-in-law’s name in the Registry of Prisoners, Kim realized that his father’s name was also listed in the registry.

For more than 20 years, the son had been longing to know where his father was sent from the former distillery after the madness of Jeju 4·3 passed through Jeju Island. Learning that both fathers of the couple had been in Daejeon Prison, the husband was overjoyed that he finally had a clue to their whereabouts after they had gone missing. In order to exonerate his father, Kim applied for a retrial of the unlawful military trial, based on the list of Jeju 4·3 prisoners. Additionally, he participated in the blood sampling for the identification of missing victims in 2018, hoping to find his father’s remains. Although he continued to clear his father’s name and restore his honor, the elderly son was stricken with a stroke while waiting for the results of the retrial. The bed-ridden son passed away in 2021, and his father, Kim Han-hong, was finally acquitted in an ex officio retrial in 2023.

A few months after the son died, 962 more victims were exhumed from the first massacre site in the supposed area of massacres in Gollyeong-gol, with the remains enshrined in the Sejong Municipal Charnel House in November that year. Among them were the remains of Kim Han-hong, a Jeju 4·3 victim who had been unaccounted for. Although finally exhumed after having spent more than 70 years in the cold ground of Gollyeong-gol, he had to wait three more years in the unfamiliar region until he returned to his family.

The Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation and the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province took on the task of bringing the remains of the identified victim to his hometown. As a result, Kim’s remains were handed over on Oct. 4, 2023, following the funeral ceremony performed at the Sejong Milky Way Park Funeral Hall with the attendance of his family members and other victims’ families as well as officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The remains were then cremated, and the urn was transported to Jeju by plane on the following day. The victim, who had been buried in a distant area from home without knowing the reason, became a handful of ashes held in the arms of his family and made a long-awaited return to his home in Jeju after 74 years.

Resolution of embitterment and the remaining tasks

The remains of Kim Han-hong, the missing victim of Jeju 4·3 who was the first to be identified, were received at the Jeju International Airport by Oh Young-hun, governor of Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, and Koh Hee-bum, president of the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation, as well as other local government officials and researchers. As he returned home in 74 years, a ceremony was held on Oct. 5, 2023, in his old house across from Bukchon Port. The ceremony was performed with the utmost respect for the deceased, attended by his neighbors who still have memories of Jeju 4·3, in high hopes for relieving the embitterment of the innocent victim. Baek brought the remains of her father-in-law on her husband’s behalf sobbed with tears of emotion.

+++ Bereaved family members pay a floral tribute to the victim at the briefing meeting on the victim’s identification.

At the briefing meeting held in the Jeju 4·3 Peace Park, the elderly lady expressed heartfelt gratitude.

“When I think of Jeju 4·3, I can hardly speak and my eyes are always filled with tears until they turn blood red,” she said, failing to hold back tears of joy and sorrow for the return of her deceased father-in-law. The widow also cited her memories of her late husband, who had long searched for his father, and told the audience that he would have been the happiest person only if he had been with her. Her sorrowful tears were shed for her husband as well, because she felt sorry that she was enjoying the return of his years of efforts to find his father. After returning home, late Kim Han-hong was laid to rest in the Memorial Tablets Enshrinement Hall.

To date, the remains of 413 Jeju 4·3 victims have been exhumed on Jeju Island, while 141 of them have been identified. With the identification of Kim, the remains of 142 victims have yet to be identified. However, the Sejong Municipal Charnel House enshrines the remains and belongings of 1,440 victims that were exhumed from the massacre sites of Gollyeong-gol in 2007, 2015, and 2020-2022. Another remaining task is to identify the victims discovered in other parts of Korea, including Gwangju and other Jeollanam-do regions as well as Gimcheon in Gyeongsangbuk-do Province. Additionally, consultation with local municipal governments also needs to be addressed concerning the sharing of genetic information on the remains exhumed from Gollyeong-gol, which has been promoted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission since September 2023.

“The pilot project allowed us to examine the remains,” said Prof. Lee Soong-duk, mentioning the difficulties in distinguishing the remains of Jeju-based victims from those of non-Jeju residents. According to the forensic scientist, the latest identification was possible because victims’ families earnestly requested and cooperated. He expressed his disappointment that only one of the victims exhumed at Gollyeong-gol was identified, stressing the need to collect more blood samples from victims’ families.

Now, we have only taken one step forward to the discovery of the missing Jeju 4·3 victims in areas other than Jeju Island. Completing the task will take more of our efforts, including continued interest and blood donation from the victims’ descendants.