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Thousands of Korean Laborers Still Lost After WWII, Cold War End

数万名二战时的朝鲜劳工仍然下落不明

By Ashley Thompson
16 August 2020

Shin Yun-sun describes her life as a series of dead ends.
Shin Yun-sun称她的生活陷入了一系列死胡同。

The South Korean has spent many of her 75 years questioning government officials, looking through records and searching burial grounds on a distant Russian island.
这位75岁的韩国人花了她一生中的大部分时间来询问政府官员，翻阅记录搜寻一个俄罗斯小岛上的墓地。

She is searching for evidence of a father she never met.
她是在寻找自己从未见过的父亲的证据。

Shin wants to bring back the remains of her father for her 92-year-old mother, Baek Bong-rye. Japan's colonial government sent Shin's father away to do forced labor in September 1943. At the time, Baek was pregnant with Shin.
Shin希望将父亲的遗骸带回给她92岁的母亲Baek Bong-rye。日本殖民政府于1943年9月将Shin的父亲送去从事强迫劳动。当时Baek怀上了Shin。

As the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II nears, the thousands of conscripted Korean men who disappeared on Russia's Sakhalin Island are a largely forgotten part of Japan's severe rule of the Korean Peninsula.
随着二战结束75周年纪念日的来临，这数万名应征入伍后消失在俄罗斯萨哈林岛上韩国人很大程度上是日本对朝鲜半岛严格统治中被遗忘的一部分。

Historians say Japan forcibly moved around 30,000 Koreans as workers during the late 1930s and 1940s. They were sent to what was then called Karafuto, or the Japanese-occupied southern half of Sakhalin, near the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Most of the Korean laborers in Sakhalin came from the South.
历史学家表示，在上世纪三四十年代，日本强行迁移了约3万名朝鲜人作为劳工。他们被送到日本北海道附近当时所谓的卡拉富托，也就是日本占领的萨哈林岛的南半部。萨哈林岛上的大多数朝鲜劳工都来自韩国。

When World War II ended, the Korean Peninsula was divided into a Soviet Union-backed north and U.S.-backed south. The 1950-53 Korean War came after, followed by the Cold War.
二战结束后，朝鲜半岛被分为苏联支持的朝鲜和美国支持的韩国。随后在1950年到1953年期间发生了朝鲜战争，之后又发生了冷战。

Soviet officials offered the Korean workers Soviet or North Korean citizenship beginning in the 1950s. But many chose to remain stateless in hopes of someday returning to South Korea.
苏联官员从上世纪50年代开始给这些朝鲜劳工提供苏联或朝鲜国籍。但是很多人选择保持无国籍状态，他们希望有一天能重返韩国。

Some of the Korean workers protested for a return to South Korea in 1976. Soviet officials answered by sending 40 of them and their families to North Korea.
1976年，一些朝鲜劳工发动示威要求返回韩国。苏联官员将其中的40人及其家人送去了朝鲜作为回应。

South Korea and Russia established diplomatic relations in 1990 and about 4,000 Koreans have returned from Sakhalin in the years since. But for people like Shin, who lost contact with family members long ago, there has been little progress.
韩国和俄罗斯于1990年建立外交关系。此后的几年里，大约有4000名朝鲜人从萨哈林岛返回韩国。但是对于像Shin这样很早就跟家人失去联络的人来说，一直进展甚微。

"The Soviet Union detained him, prevented him from going home and exploited his labor," Shin said about her father. "(The Russian government) should at least find and send back his remains."
Shin谈到父亲时表示：“苏联扣留了他，阻止他回家，并剥削他的劳动。俄罗斯政府至少应该找到他的遗骸并送回来。”

Last year, Shin and other family members sought help from a United Nations group to find 25 Sakhalin Koreans. The U.N. group in June asked Russia's government to search for 10 of them first, said Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal expert from the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group. He has helped with the U.N. involvement.
去年，Shin和其他家庭寻求联合国组织的帮助以找到25名在萨哈林岛的朝鲜人。总部设在首尔的过渡司法工作小组的法律专家Ethan Hee-Seok Shin表示，这家联合国组织于6月份要求俄罗斯政府首先查找其中的10人。他协助了联合国的这次介入。

Shin said that relatives only started feeling safe talking openly about their missing fathers in the last 20 years. This meant their effort got less attention than other cruel acts tied to Japan's colonial rule of Korea, said Bang Il-kwon, a scholar at Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
Shin表示，最近20年，亲属们才开始放心谈论他们失踪的父亲。首尔韩国外国语大学的学者Bang Il-kwon表示，这意味着他们的努力没有受到其它跟日本对朝鲜殖民统治残酷行为那么多的关注。

In 2011, a South Korean government group investigating colonial forced movement began working with Russia to identify and return the remains of the Koreans in Sakhalin who died before the 1990s.
2011年，韩国政府一家调查殖民地强迫迁移的机构开始与俄罗斯合作，以查明并归还在上世纪90年代之前去世的萨哈林岛朝鲜人的遗体。

South Korean researchers spent years examining the island's poorly kept burial areas, where stone or wooden markers were often missing, damaged or not clearly marked. In 2015, South Korean researchers reported that at least 5,000 graves belonged to Korean forced laborers.
韩国研究人员花了数年时间调查了该岛年久失修的墓地，那里的石制或木制的标记经常丢失、损坏或记录不清。2015年，韩国研究人员报告称，至少有5000座坟墓属于韩国劳工。

But the efforts soon lost strength. South Korea's conservative government at the time refused to extend the group's mandate after 2015.
但是这些措施很快失效。2015年之后，当时的韩国保守派政府拒绝延长该组织的授权。

There has been little talk about restarting the activities under liberal President Moon Jae-in. His government has clashed with Japan over other wartime issues but also wants engagement with North Korea.
自由派总统文在寅统治下也一直很少谈到重启这一活动。文在寅政府与日本在战时问题上发生了冲突，但是也希望与朝鲜接触。

South Korea has said it hopes to reach a new agreement with Russia that would expand efforts to find and return the remains. However, Lee Sang-won, an official from South Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety, admits nothing has been agreed to yet.
韩国称希望与俄罗斯达成一项新协议，以扩大发现和归还遗骸的工作。然而，韩国内政与安全部官员Lee Sang-won承认目前尚未达成任何协议。

Shin is critical of the slow progress.
Shin对进展缓慢表示批评。

She said, "Who knows how long it will be before my mother is gone, too?"
她说：“谁知道还有多久我母亲也要没了。”

I'm Ashley Thompson.
我是阿什利·汤普森。

Words in This Story

dead end - adj. a situation, plan, or way of doing something that leads to nothing further

conscript - v. to force (someone) to serve in the armed forces

exploit - v. to use (someone or something) in a way that helps you unfairly

scholar - n. a person who has studied a subject for a long time and knows a lot about it

grave - n. a hole in the ground for burying a dead body

mandate - n. an official order to do something

engagement - n. the act or state of being involved with something

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