Seoul Nat’l University to honor the war dead during Korean War

Seoul National University has many monuments on its campus: Park Jong-cheol, Kim Se-jin, and Lee Jae-ho in the College of Humanities, Cho Seong-man and Cho Jeong-shik in the College of Natural Science, Hwang Jeong-ha in the College of Engineering, and Kim Sang-jin in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. All of them were Seoul National University students who sacrificed their lives for democracy during the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan military regimes. The April 19 monument honoring six students who were sacrificed in the protest including Kim Chi-moon is located in the College of Social Sciences. It was relocated from a remote area in Mt. Kwanak to the current place close to the main gate 20 years ago. On April 19 every year, the university’s professors and student representatives have a memorial ceremony at the monument.

Seoul National University has few monuments honoring its students who lost their lives during the Korean War, however. In 1996, it found 27 students who died in the Korean War and engraved their names on the wall of a concert hall. It additionally discovered 19 students in 2009, and the number adds up to 46. Given many records were lost due to the relocation of the university to Busan during the war, it is estimated that hundreds of the university’s students died.

In any school or city hall in France and the U.K., people can easily find the names of the war dead who sacrificed their lives during World War I and II from the school or the city. So does the U.S. This is something that one cannot find in Germany or Japan. The students who died after fighting against North Korea during the Korean War saved their country at risk. Without them, there would have been no freedom of learning and teaching at Seoul National University.

Sung Nak-in, new president of Seoul National University, visited the April 19 monument in the campus as his first official schedule. A president, a prime minister, and the leaders of both ruling and opposition parties visit the Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul when they are inaugurated. Seoul National University campus, however, has nothing like that. A poet who graduated from the university said, “If someone asks the future of our country, raise your head and look at Kwanak (where the campus is located).” If it is a university that someone can ask the future of the country, it should talk about patriotism as well as democracy. Seoul National University has decided to build a monument for the students who died during the Korean War by June next year. Though belated, it is good news.