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기사입력 : 2025.06.30 07:34
On
June 25th, 2025, instead of attending the festival at the UN Memorial Cemetery
in Busan this year, I decided to visit the Incheon 6.25 War Student Memorial
Hall.
Located
beneath a dental clinic, I was skeptical of the memorial’s significance;
however, I was wrong to judge a book by its cover. During the Korean War,
students–as young as 14 year old middle schoolers–joined the frontlines under
the name Student Volunteer Soldiers. Among them was Korean War veteran Lee
Kyung-jong, then a middle school student in Incheon, who later became curious
about the comrades he had fought alongside at such a young age. After becoming
a successful dentist, he wanted to know how many of his young friends had
participated and how many had been lost. Driven by this desire, he began
meeting those who had shared the experience and meticulously collected
materials. This effort culminated in the opening of the Incheon Student Korean
War Memorial Hall on December 18, 2004.
Official
casualties from the Korean War number over one million, with civilians
accounting for more than 80%. War tore away people’s everyday lives, and many
students, in an attempt to reclaim their lost lives, headed to the battlefield.
These students who voluntarily joined the frontlines were called Student
Volunteer Soldiers. Throughout the war, approximately 27,700 students
participated in combat. In addition, about 200,000 students supported the war
effort from behind the lines through psychological operations and efforts to
restore public morale. Many young people volunteered to enlist and fight as
soldiers. Among them were a significant number of women, most of whom served on
the frontlines as nurses.
The
Incheon Student Korean War Memorial Hall is a museum dedicated to preserving
the stories of Incheon’s student soldiers who are often forgotten in official
records. It was founded through the efforts of Lee Kyung-jong, a former student
soldier, and his son, Lee Kyu-won, the current director of the museum.
“I
was only sixteen. Why did I follow my older brothers into the war? How many of
us went? How many of us died?”
Motivated
by these questions, starting in 2000, they held exhibitions of war photos in
Incheon, eventually establishing the museum on December 18, 2004. This date was
not chosen at random. It was the day students in Incheon gathered at Incheon
Chukhyeon Elementary School and began their march southward to enlist. Around
1,000 middle schoolers and 1,000 high schoolers, along with 20 university
students leading them, volunteered together and marched 25 km per day for 20
days to protect their country.
The
Incheon Student Korean War Memorial Hall now houses a wide collection of these
materials across two exhibition floors. It also publishes research papers and
other publications using the collected data. In one corner of the museum, there
is also a memorial altar where visitors can pay tribute to the student soldiers
who lost their lives in the Korean War. There we wrote our appreciation for the
fallen soldiers and fellow students, ensuring their history is not forgotten.
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