A Korean Village Torn Apart From Within Mends Itself
KURIM, South Korea — This village was once drenched with blood. Bodies of villagers shot or stabbed to death lined its lanes, and the stench of people burned alive saturated its air.
What makes Kurim remarkable, however, is not the killings of about 300 people in the months surrounding the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Eruptions of violence among neighbors caught up in the ideological strife of the time were common in South Korea, survivors and historians say.
Rather, what sets this village apart, in a nation where divisions from a war fought a half century ago still linger, is that its residents have entered a public process of reconciliation in recent years. They have held a joint mourning service for all those killed on both sides of the war’s divide and are raising money for a memorial.
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What makes Kurim remarkable, however, is not the killings of about 300 people in the months surrounding the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Eruptions of violence among neighbors caught up in the ideological strife of the time were common in South Korea, survivors and historians say.
Rather, what sets this village apart, in a nation where divisions from a war fought a half century ago still linger, is that its residents have entered a public process of reconciliation in recent years. They have held a joint mourning service for all those killed on both sides of the war’s divide and are raising money for a memorial.