Eun Sung “Grace” Im was just a young girl when she and her family fled North Korea during the war, riding on an overcrowded fishing boat that caught fire and nearly sank before landing safely below the 38th parallel.
Her family embarked on the harrowing journey in the middle of the night because they feared persecution by the communist soldiers in North Korea, where her father served as a Christian minister.
Im grew up in South Korea, eventually immigrated to America and is now among more than 54,000 North and South Koreans living in Georgia. Many are now anxiously watching the U.S.-North Korean peace talks, hoping an agreement will be reached allowing them to reunite with relatives still living in North Korea.
Im’s oldest sister remained in North Korea during the war. They haven’t seen each other in more than six decades.
“I don’t know whether she is living or dead because there is no communication. We cannot send letters — no communication at all,” said Im, 76, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Suwanee and is a member of the National Coalition on the Divided Families, which seeks family reunification. Im has other relatives who may be alive in North Korea. “I wish I could see them.”
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‘He will never give up the bombs’
Im watched on television this week as President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shook hands before a row of North Korean and U.S. flags at the summit in Singapore. She is skeptical about her homeland, which has repeatedly broken promises to stop nuclear activities. And she is particularly suspicious about the meetings that took place between Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping before the peace summit. She suspects China is coaching Kim.
“I don’t how much is true or false,” she said of the commitments Kim made this week. “It is hard to trust Kim Jong-un and North Korea.”
Don Kim, 77, has also been closely following news this week. A retired medical lab technologist living in Buford, Kim fled North Korea in 1950 when he was just 10 years old. Kim’s older brother remained in North Korea. Kim would like to visit him, but only if his safety can be guaranteed in North Korea.
Meanwhile, Kim is glad the peace talks are underway. But he doesn’t believe the North Korean dictator will rid his country of nuclear weapons. Those bombs, Kim said, are preventing a popular uprising that could spell the end of the dictator.
“If they are going to lose their nuclear (weapons), he is dead,” he said. “That is why he couldn’t give (them) up.”
Like Im, Kim is critical of Trump’s decision to cancel joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, an announcement that apparently surprised the Pentagon and South Korean government. Kim doesn’t believe Trump got anything significant in return for that move.
“Mr. Trump – he doesn’t have anything,” he said. “Why did we stop? Why did we do that?”
Kris Chong, 72, a retired international trade worker living in Lilburn, fled Pyongyang for South Korea during the war when he was a young boy. He remembers walking across the Korean countryside for two months with his younger brother, mother and grandmother. An aunt and a cousin remained in North Korea. Family reunification is an urgent priority, he said, as many separated relatives are growing older and infirm. The Trump administration, meanwhile, should be skeptical of Kim Jong-un and not rush negotiations.
“Take time,” said Chong, chairman of the southeast region for the National Coalition on the Divided Families. “Kim Jong-un — we don’t believe him. We know he will never give up the bombs.”
Crimes against humanity
Georgia is also home to more recent arrivals from North Korea. In the past 10 years, the U.S. has accepted 177 North Korean refugees, including four who were initially relocated in Georgia, federal figures show.
One of them – a 19-year-old woman who moved to the Atlanta area after initially being resettled in Colorado — agreed to speak with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about her experience. She asked not to be identified because she fears for her safety and the well-being of relatives still living in her homeland. Choosing “Sophie” as her pseudonym, she recalled an oppressive government in North Korea, arbitrary imprisonment, indoctrination, a landscape stripped of trees, and people beset with such hunger that they ate grass to survive.
The North Korean government jailed her mother for five years after accusing her of illegally trading goods with Chinese businessmen. They escaped into China when Sophie was 15, leaving behind a younger brother and some aunts.
“I want there to be peace and for the North Korean people to get freedom to go to other countries,” she said, adding that North Korean authorities have spied on her relatives in her homeland since she fled. “I have not met my family for almost four years. I miss them a lot. I wish I could see them.”
Sophie had good reasons to flee her homeland. Four years ago, the United Nations released a damning report about North Korea that documented crimes against humanity there, including "extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence." The North Korean government has also used starvation to control and punish its people, the report said.
Sophie pointed out that Kim Jong-un is thought to have had his uncle executed for treason. He was torn apart by antiaircraft machine guns and then incinerated with flamethrowers. Last year, Kim’s estranged older brother was fatally poisoned at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Sophie now works at a clothing store in the Atlanta area and is receiving assistance from Lutheran Services of Georgia, a refugee resettlement aid organization. Meanwhile, she is attending high school, learning English and dreaming of becoming a nurse.
“America is not easy, actually. I am trying my best,” she said. “I am trying to be happy and work hard.”
A dangerous nighttime escape
Im still has vivid memories of surviving the Korean War. She grew up in Hamhung, a coastal city northeast of Pyongyang. She remembers hiding under her desk in elementary school there, jamming her fingers in her ears and shielding her eyes when the American bombers attacked. For a few months, her family took cover at her grandmother’s lush farm in the countryside.
South Korean and U.S. soldiers helped them and another Christian family evacuate. They left in the middle of the night. She remembers it was cold. Her family had to leave behind the kimchi they had just prepared.
They first rode in a military truck to a harbor, where a fishing boat picked them up. At least 30 people climbed into the vessel, which was loaded with dried fish. As water nearly poured over the sides of their boat, they feared they were sinking, so some of the refugees began pushing the dried fish into the water. During their voyage a fire broke out, prompting the refugees to cry and pray for their lives.
Using a blanket, a quick-thinking soldier put out the flames. Their boat eventually arrived in South Korea, where Im’s family scrambled to survive. Despite the upheaval in her life, she excelled in school. She graduated from Seoul National University before immigrating to America and getting a graduate degree in music from Vanderbilt University.
Im still remembers her home address in North Korea because her grandmother used to drill her on it. Dining on freshly cut watermelon at her kitchen table in Suwanee this week, she recited that address in Korean. And then she reminisced about eating juicy pears and peaches at her grandmother’s orchard, about catching small fish in the nearby streams and about making homemade chewing gum, using tree resin.
“I wonder whether my house is still there or not. That I would like to see,” she said, adding she wants to take her children and grandchildren with her. “It is a very beautiful hometown.”
Korean population in America
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metro area: 44,796
Georgia: 54,563
Nation: 1.4 million
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Our Reporting
Georgia is home to more than 54,000 North and South Koreans, some of whom have relatives in North Korea. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reached out to some this week for their views amid the U.S.-North Korean peace talks in Singapore. In January, the AJC reported about 4,000 Georgia-based troops from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division were deploying to South Korea.
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