[imText1]Due to the lack of transportation at the time, it would have been difficult to carry out, but Seoul lies adjacent to North Korea, so most people were taken by foot. Recorded in the autobiography In Front of History, historian Kim Sung Chil, who was in Seoul until the September 28 victory, it can be confirmed that Seoul civilian transfer business was being organized since July according to the “Seoul 500,000 civilian transfer command.”

Additionally, the correspondence from the U.S. Consulate in Tokyo, Japan back to the U.S. on October 11, 1950 regarding the Seoul situation provides evidence for the kidnappings.

In the correspondence, it is written, “Between September 17, 1950 to the 28th, over 10,000 people, at least 20,000 political criminals who were held in prison or were in detainment or under inspection disappeared from Seoul (shortened). In the last days of the occupation, the Communist Party devoted itself to transferring people such as musicians, pastors, government officials, businessmen and youth who can lift weights to the Northern part of the peninsula.”

– What kind of kidnapping methods did North Korea use?

North Korea tactfully hid its kidnapping actions and took people using a variety of means. This is called, “Disguised Kidnapping”–under the pretext of voluntary surrender, tourism, strategy of accompaniment, transfer, and mobilization, it executed the kidnappings. In many instances, North Korean military commanders would come to the house and say they had some questions and take people away. There used even a method of hunting down the hiding persons and kidnapping them.

– What kind of a process did the kidnap victims go through?

Several famous politicians were kidnapped by vehicles starting July 1950, but were taken by foot upon reaching mountainous paths. There were several courses and forms, but they can be divided into two.

First, internal affairs and the State Political Security Affairs Agency ordered self-written affidavits be written several times and after inspection, would confine them in prisons. When renting became disadvantageous, they sent handcuffed abductees by railcar to Cheongryangri in September 1950 in the middle of the night. Or they would hold people in the medical college lecture hall and beginning the following night, over 3,000 people would be bound and collectively walk by foot, passing through Yeoncheon and Hwanghaedo Sibyulri to Pyongyang prison.

Second, kidnap victims can be put under informal arrest at schools and other public places and can be sent to the battlefield under the pretense of volunteer army.

– What are the statistical materials on wartime abductees?

Through ”Research regarding the objective analysis of the realities of 6-25 abductees” (Professor Kim Myung Ho from Kangreung University), Seoul Metropolitan City’s Injured Persons’ Roster composed by the 1950 Bureau of Public Information’s Bureau of Statistics, 1951.

There are: Korean Wartime Abductees’ List, created by 6-25 Wartime Abductees’ Family Committee, The Korean Wartime Abductees’ Roster, created by the government in 1952, The Korean War Disturbance’s Abductees’ List made by the Internal Affairs Department’s Bureau for Public Peace in 1954, and Lost Persons’ Report made by the Red Cross Society in 1956. (continued)