Sorrow of Nostalgia

“We are excited only with the fact that we were selected.”

The departure waiting room at Gimpo Airport on December 21, 1963. The place swelled with the excitement of the first group of 247 mine workers who were waiting for their flight to Dusseldorf, Germany. They were selected for the highly competitive positions as the miners to be sent to Germany with 15 applicants for every spot.

However, what they encountered in the new country was heat which climbs above 40 degrees centigrade and mine galleries which lead 1,000 m below ground where there are sharp-teethed machines. The mine workers said hello to each other in the elevator that takes them to this underworld saying, “Glück auf,” meaning “Luck up” in English. It meant, “Let’s find a safe way out and meet up again above ground.”

MBC broadcasts three episodes of this special documentary, “Miners and Nurses Who Went to Germany,” from June 11 for three days. This program was planned to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Korean-German diplomatic ties.

The first episode broadcasts on June 11 at 11:15 p.m. and looks back at life at the mines and hospitals where the mine workers and the nurses, scattered around the country, spent their youthful days four decades ago. The second episode on June 12 at 11:30 p.m. covers the success stories in which they achieved their dreams to become singers, doctors, and professors with their experiences as mine workers and nurses in the land of opportunities. The third one on June 13 at 11:30 p.m. covers the stories of people who did not return to their homeland even after the conclusion of the three-year contract period.

The Korean community population in Germany currently stands at 30,000 people, and 12,000 out of them were originally miners or nurses. Seventy percent of them tied the knot with each other while the rest married Germans.

The foreign currencies earned by the sent-to-Germany mine workers and nurses in the 1960s laid the foundation for the economic development in Korea. The Korean government then brought in a $35 million loan from Germany with the three-year salary of the workers and the dispatch as guarantees. Thirty-six percent of the total export amount in 1967 was earned by the mine workers.

“I wanted to tell the story that there was sacrifice made by the mine workers and nurses behind Korea’s economic development in the 1960s,” said Chief Producer Choi Woo-chul.

ecolee@donga.com