“I would hide them again if I went back”… Rescuing one another against barbarity - 경향신문

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One winter night, a neighbor you are close to knocks on your front gate. He says he is in mortal danger and asks to be hidden for a while. He is innocent, as guileless as white snow. You let the trembling man in, but soldiers soon storm in and thrust gun barrels at you, demanding, “Where did the commie go?” If you tell the truth, your innocent neighbor will be dragged away; if you feign ignorance, you may also see blood. What would you do?

It may sound extreme, but scenes like this unfolded countless times in modern Korean history. After liberation came ideological conflict and massacres; under military dictatorships, democratization movements were suppressed with guns and blades, followed by arrests and torture. Korea's past is stained with the tragedies of state violence. The state even mobilized the ‘guilt-by-association’ system, in order to sever helping hands and isolate those being hunted.

Yet the power of solidaritypeople helping peopleproved tougher than iron sinew. Many ordinary people unconditionally helped others under threat. Over the past few months, I met people who became refuges for others and listened to their stories. I would like to introduce in today's letter the Kyunghyang Shinmun anniversary series created that way, ‘Shelter: Saving One Another.’

In Sinheung-ri, Namwon-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju, there is a story handed down about the ‘I-do-not-know headman.’ In 1948, during the 4·3 Incident, when countless civilians lost their lives amid extreme ideological conflict, it was the story of village head Kim Seong-hong who protected the village. In those days when a single word could get someone killed and a village burned, despite relentless questioning from the military and police suspicious of the villagers, Headman Kim stuck to “I do not know.” That is how he got the nickname ‘I-do-not-know headman.’ He protected the village by cooking for the patrol officers making their rounds.

Even now, Jeju is a place where, because of its tight-knit community, villagers know one another well and lean on each other. For such people, the 4·3 Incident was a deep wound. Neighbors known since childhood were dragged away and massacred, and many died trying to shield them. At times, to save themselves and their families, people had to turn away from neighbors. Even so, many accepted disadvantage and protected one another.

During the phase of civilian massacres in the Korean War, such people also emerged. In Hallim-myeon, Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, the brothers Choi Dae-seong·Choi Dae-hong rescued villagers who had been locked in a warehouse awaiting death. In Cheongju, North Chungcheong, Ahn Man-geun, the police substation chief, defied orders to massacre Bodo League members locked in a warehouse and released them. They summoned difficult courage because they knew all too well that those imprisoned were innocent civilians.

On June 10, 1987, protesters and riot police confront each other on a street in Seoul. Kyunghyang Shinmun file photo

From the 1960s through the 1980s, the struggle against dictatorship did not cease. It was a time when regimes suppressed citizens' protests with guns and blades. Even before menacing guns, batons, and tear gas, there were people who rescued one another. A church deacon protected high school student Jeong Woo-hwa, who was shot while taking part in the protests of the April 19 Revolution in 1960. When police came saying they would search the church, he lied, “The students ran that way,” and saved Jeong.

In October 1979, during the Bu-Ma Democratic Uprising, merchants, including those at Gukje Market, took the lead in protecting university students chased by riot police. When students covered in tear gas powder dashed into a shop, they pulled down the shutters and gave them water or food. Police who had been running with batons had to turn back in front of the closed doors.

It was the same during the May 18 Democratization Movement in 1980. The family of American missionary Rev. Charles Betts Huntley, who was living in Gwangju at the time, hid threatened Gwangju youths in the attic of their home. There were hair-raising moments when soldiers came to search, but the youngest daughter, Jennifer, used her wits to send them away. Rev. Huntley's wife, Martha, told the Kyunghyang Shinmun, “Even if I could go back to that time, I would protect them again.”

On May 18, 2018, at the National May 18 Democratic Cemetery in Gwangju, Martha Huntley, wife of the late Rev. Charles Betts Huntleywho worked to inform the world about the truth of May 18embraces bereaved families of May 18. Kyunghyang Shinmun file photo

These stories are not only from long ago. Hyangrin Church, which sheltered wanted participants in democratization movements in the 1970s and 1980s, has since continued to serve as a ‘shelter (Shelter·refuge)’ for those needing a place to stay. It protected undocumented migrant workers from crackdowns and deportations, and rushed to scenes of social tragedy such as the Yongsan tragedy, pitching tents and protecting people.

Hyangrin Church also opened its doors to citizens who ran out into the streets and stayed up all night after the illegal 12·3 martial law in 2024. From March through April, it provided free lodging and shower facilities to citizens who called late into the night for the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol. Every day, 10~20 citizens came to Hyanrin Church near Gwanghwamun to wash and sleep.

‘Solidarity’ means a band that connects people. True to that word, those who once received help often helped others in hardship. So did Yun Yong-won, a young man who escaped massacre during the Korean War thanks to Chief Ahn Man-geun. He received an order from the People's Army occupying the village to ‘arrest the family of Chief Ahn,’ but he secretly spared Chief Ahn's younger brother.

Jeong Woo-hwa, who was saved in the April 19 protests by the help of an adult, also lived a life that returned solidarity. Exactly twenty years later, when the democratization movement that began in May 1980 in Gwangju spread across South Jeolla Province, Jeong, who was working in Mokpo, went out to the protests held daily in front of the station to cheer on the young people. To this day, he lends strength at candlelight rallies and lightstick rallies.

Yoo (26), who stayed at Hyangrin Church's ‘shelter’ during the overnight rally calling for the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol, looks at the church in front of Hyangrin Church in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on August 13.

These days are full of diagnoses of a ‘crisis of democracy.’ In a world that favors winning the survival-of-the-fittest competition over living in solidarity with neighbors, helping others can even seem like a loss. There are many moments when it feels as if only the despair of ‘That is just how it is’ and the cynicism of ‘There is nothing we can do’ are growing.

But is it really all like that? Is it really unavoidable? I am not sure. Within our hearts are both the compassion that does not look away from those in crisis and the courage to save others even knowing we may be put at risk. I do not mean to tell an idealistic story that we are inherently beautiful beings and the world is entirely worth living in. I only dare to think that, just as we know well our own cruel and cold sides, we need not deny the nature that can extend warm human decency to others.

If our often-shaken democracy has nevertheless not fallen in the end, perhaps it is thanks to that heart of ordinary human decency. And perhaps that very heart may save us from a crisis that will come far in the future.

“Even when you look at just one thing, do it three-dimensionally” is the slogan of the Kyunghyang Shinmun newsletter <Point-Line-Plane>. We analyze issues worth readers' consideration as point (fact), line (context), and plane (perspective) to present them three-dimensionally. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 a.m., spend ten minutes a day reading <Point-Line-Plane> and build your ‘mental muscles.’