Endless search for graves of forgotten independence fighters

Ahn Jun-beom, a specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs who has been in charge of repatriating the remains of independence fighters buried overseas and surveying the condition of their graves for 15 years, poses during a business trip to Moscow in 2021. Courtesy of Ahn Jun-beom

At a ceremony held at Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Nov. 15, 2022, to repatriate the remains of independence fighters buried overseas, the voice of Hwang So-young, the great-great-granddaughter of independence fighter Lee Han-ho (1895-1960), trembled slightly as she reached the final lines of a letter she had written to him. Until then, she had read it in a calm, steady voice.

Moments later, Lee’s remains were carried into the ceremony hall by an honor guard from the Ministry of National Defense’s ceremonial unit. It was his return home, 107 years after leaving his homeland. Lee moved to China’s Jiandao region in 1915 and joined Maenghodan, an anti-Japanese independence group. After participating in a March 1 Independence Movement demonstration in 1919, he fled to Russia and then Shanghai, China, to escape Japanese police. He later moved to Switzerland, where he continued his independence movement activities. He died there in September 1960.

On that day, 62 years after Lee’s death, as he was finally laid to rest in his homeland, one person watched the scene with more anxiety than anyone else — Ahn Jun-beom, 50, a specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs. He handled the arrangements to bring Lee’s remains from Switzerland to a national cemetery in Korea in consultation with his family.

Ahn makes an average of five or six overseas business trips a year, sometimes spending more than 10 days on each trip. He spends three to five months preparing for each trip. His work includes everything from arranging flights and accommodation to meticulously reviewing newspaper archives, academic papers and memoirs, as well as scheduling meetings with family members and representatives of relevant organizations at his destination.

“The most rewarding moment is when the remains of an independence fighter arrive safely in Korea and enter the arrivals hall. If the soul exists, I think he might have felt that all the blood, sweat and tears he shed for the independence movement in a foreign land had been worthwhile,” Ahn told Hankook Ilbo in an interview.

Over the past 14 years, Ahn has located a total of 161 graves of independence fighters overseas. The remains of eight of them have been repatriated to Korea.

In November, the remains of three more independence fighters buried in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the United States, respectively, are scheduled to be repatriated to Korea. On Feb. 4, independence fighter Lee Ha-jeon (1921-2026), the last surviving independence fighter living overseas, died at his home in the United States at the age of 105. Only four surviving independence fighters remain in Korea.

The first repatriation of independence fighters’ remains took place in 1946, after Korea’s liberation, when Kim Koo, a prominent independence leader, brought the remains of Yun Bong-gil, Lee Bong-chang and Baek Jeong-gi, who had been secretly buried in Japan, to Hyochang Park in Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Government-led repatriations began in 1975.

Hankook Ilbo spoke with Ahn by phone. The following is an edited transcript of the interview.

Q. You have been in charge of repatriating the remains of independence fighters buried overseas and surveying the condition of their graves since 2012. What exactly does your work involve?

A. I oversee the maintenance of graves of independence fighters buried overseas, provide support for repairing damaged graves and, in consultation with their families, arrange for their remains to be brought to national cemeteries in Korea. I also search for the graves of independence fighters whose burial locations have not yet been identified.

The remains of independence fighters Gye Bong-u and Hwang Un-jeong, repatriated from Kazakhstan to Korea in 2019, are placed in the seats reserved for senior government officials aboard Air Force Unit 2. Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae

A. I majored in modern Korean history in university, and my first job was at the Presidential Committee for the Inspection of Collaborations for Japanese Imperialism. I worked there as an investigator from 2006 to 2009 before joining the veterans ministry.

More than 18,000 people have received government honors for their contributions to the independence movement. Apart from a few figures everyone knows well, such as Kim Gu, Ahn Jung-geun and Yun Bong-gil, the lives of most other independence fighters were recorded in just a line or two. I was very curious about what their final days had been like.

Q. Finding graves overseas must be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

A. Something happened once while I was examining letters written by Lee In-seop (1888-1982), an independence fighter who was active in Russia’s Far East. At the top of one letter, I found the sender’s name, Yu Hak-gwan, and an address in Uzbekistan. That was unusual.

I first looked into who Yu was and found that he was an independence fighter who received the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 2012, but the exact location of his grave had not been identified. Yu was born in 1892, and the letter was exchanged in 1958. I paused to think about the clues. He would have been in his mid-60s when he sent the letter. Given that Uzbekistan was then part of the Soviet Union, a socialist state where freedom of movement was restricted, it seemed likely that he had lived somewhere in that region until his death.

A view of Staraya Cemetery in the Syrdarya region of Uzbekistan, where independence fighter Yu Hak-gwan (1892-1986) is buried. Ahn Jun-beom, a specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, said he headed to the cemetery with only one clue — that many ethnic Koreans were buried there — and searched the vast grounds, checking tombstones one by one despite the July heat, when temperatures approached 40 degrees Celsius. Courtesy of Ahn Jun-beom

Q. Did you travel to Uzbekistan to find Yu’s grave with nothing more than an address from his lifetime?

A. I visited a Korean community organization in the Syrdarya region, where Yu had spent his later years. No one remembered him. They only told me that there was a cemetery on the outskirts of the area where many Koreans who had died in the 1960s and 1970s were buried.

I had no choice but to go there and see what I could find. The Staraya Cemetery, where I arrived, was so vast that I couldn’t see where it ended. It seemed impossible to search it alone. But I couldn’t just give up. I had come all this way using taxpayers’ money, so I had to do everything I could. I thought that way, at least, I would have something to say about my efforts later.

The grave of independence fighter Yu Hak-gwan (1892-1986), which Ahn Jun-beom, a specialist at the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs, discovered almost miraculously at Staraya Cemetery in the Syrdarya region of Uzbekistan. Courtesy of Ahn Jun-beom

Just as I was about to wrap up the search, I happened to turn my head, and there it was — the tombstone of the very person I had been searching for. It was almost as if God had led me to that spot.

Q. Even when you find a grave after all that effort, not all remains can be brought back to Korea, can they?

A. The wishes of the families and local communities are important, too. Whenever possible, we wait patiently until everyone is happy to say, “Let’s bring them home to Korea.”

Q. How are the graves of independence fighters whose remains have not been repatriated maintained overseas?

A. We coordinate with local Korean diplomatic missions to hold memorial visits from time to time, and the veterans ministry also conducts annual surveys of the graves’ conditions. Whenever I visit, I make sure to meet with the families and maintain our relationships with them. Think about it from the other side. If a Chinese official suddenly came to us and said, “Your grandfather was an anti-Japanese martyr in China, so we’re going to take his remains back,” wouldn’t we be taken aback, too?

In the left photo, the grave of independence fighter Kim Nam-geuk (1868-1920), buried in Hunchun, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, China. In the right photo, the grave, located in a remote mountain area was restored with support from the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs. Kim served as the inaugural principal of Dongchang School in Daehwanggu Village, Hunchun, and took part in the anti-Japanese independence movement. He was killed by Japanese troops seeking revenge after their defeat in the Battle of Bongodong. Courtesy of Ahn Jun-beom

Q. Is the idea that the state must take responsibility for those who sacrificed their lives for the country until the very end?

A. That is something the state is naturally obligated to do. Bringing independence fighters who suffered in unfamiliar lands to regain their homeland back to a free and dignified Korea is the last opportunity we have to show them the country they dreamed of.

They would not have wanted to end their lives buried in a remote mountain valley in a foreign country, where no one would come looking for them. This is a small token of gratitude for their sacrifices.

Lee Jae Myung, then leader of the Democratic Party of Korea and now president, touches the tombstone of Gen. Hong Beom-do at the Daejeon National Cemetery in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Aug. 29, 2023. Joint Press Corps

Q. The 2021 repatriation of Gen. Hong Beom-do’s (1868-1943) remains was deeply moving.

A. That was the most moving case for me personally, too. It was a special operation in which all of the country’s resources and capabilities were mobilized. After many twists and turns, the leaders of Korea and Kazakhstan reached an unexpected agreement to bring his remains home, but the operation was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the person handling the practical arrangements, my biggest concern was what would happen if we excavated the grave and found no remains. I kept thinking, “Please let him be here.”

Q. You must have felt a great deal when Gen. Hong’s remains were recovered.

A. I was calmer than I expected. I thought I would burst into tears, but I didn’t. I had no time to dwell on my emotions. All I could think was, “Now I have to move on to the next task.” But the moment I saw the Air Force’s special transport plane parked on the runway to bring Gen. Hong’s remains home, I suddenly felt tears welling up. I couldn’t believe how glad I was to see the four Korean characters spelling the Republic of Korea on the fuselage.

The cover of “A Man Who Searches for Graves” by Ahn Jun-beom / Courtesy of Teumsae Books

Q. Is there an independence fighter’s grave you particularly want to find and bring home?

A. I want to find the graves of those who took up arms and fought directly in places such as Bongodong, Cheongsanri and the Maritime Province.

They may have no names, and we don’t even know whether they have proper burial mounds somewhere in the mountains or fields of China or Russia. But I truly want to find those who are buried somewhere out there, no matter what it takes.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.