한국전쟁 포로와 사진: ‘동양공산주의자’ 인종 프레임과 폭력성 재현

Abstract

War photographs act like a ‘messenger of collective memory’ in a ‘coverage of war.’ How are the images of prisoners of war who have survived from cruel violence and massacre remembered to us? In a narrative history on prisoners of the Korean War, the non-repatriated prisoners saw a prison camp as a ‘holy place of anti-communism,’ whereas it was recognized by the repatriated prisoners as the setting of an epic on ‘heroes who had resisted imperialism.’ These two prisoner groups of different natures had a completely different memory from each other. A collective memory was transformed into politics of memory. What does the existence of war prisoners really mean? The pictures of prisoners of the Korean War produced by the armed forces of Korea, the United States (navy, army and air forces), the United Kingdom and North Korea show us images of collective memories and transformed places. A photograph of prisoners offers a range of production data like basic information of five W's and one H, camera model and major parts (for example, film) and printing. Produced images hold memory and expansion effects, which vary depending on who classified, used or disposed of them in a which way for what purposes. Photographs of the Korean War have been metaphorically used in a variety of ways for a psychological warfare or politics, according to a nation or certain group's intentions. As a consequence, pictures of war prisoners have sometimes raised conflicts between generations or have been disregarded according to values the nation of the present or past commemorates. Keeping such a critical attitude in mind, this study attempted to find out the angles that soldier photographers had sought from the camera's viewfinder and the ways that an angle was caught on a subject and the subject was expressed. The U.S. Army's ‘criteria for classifying war prisoners’ had been applied in classifying the prisoners of the Korean War. These criteria for classifying prisoners are a racial or violent frame consisting of ‘Orient communists’ and ‘vicious reds/hardcore communists,’ which were suggested by the United Nations Forces and the Korean Army. This frame was valued for its utility in a psychological warfare for politics of memory. Four sequences can be generated from the classification of prisoners. The first scene is in a frame of race and violence. The photographs under the control of the U.S. Army, North Korean People’s Army or Chinese People's Volunteer Army demonstrate a cycle of violence as they were used in distinguishing or discriminating between the East and the West in accordance with slogans or policies such as ‘Orient communists’ and ‘American imperialist invaders.’ This corresponds to a double exposure consisting of race and violence. Such a double exposure is maximized between a prisoner and another, administrators and prisoners, and guards and prisoners in a prison camp or compound. The second scene is about a theory to produce ‘Orient communist’ prisoners. A prisoner who had been watched through a double exposure in the cycle of race and violence became a prisoner of a new category called transformed ‘vicious prisoners,’ which was like a birth of a new species. The pictures of prisoners taken by the photographers of the U.S. Army look as if the ‘vicious prisoners’ were conspiring to seize control of the prison camp by raising a ‘riot.’ The third scene is about ‘potential enemy’ and fellowship. Even though the war prisoners of the North Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People's Volunteer Army were classified into a new category due to the principle of ‘voluntary repatriation’ and there was a ‘sense of fellowship’ between them and the Korean and U.S. Armies pursuant to the policies on war prisoners, they were treated as ‘potential enemies.’ Those people named ‘anticommunist prisoners’ were enemies invented or retrained by intelligence operations by the Korean government and the U.S. Army. They struggled to enhance a sense of fellowship with the U.S. Army and to show themselves as a converted ally by offering the Army detailed information on repatriated prisoners and destroying prison compounds of the repatriates. The Korean government and the U.S. Army, however, regarded the converted people as ‘potential enemies’ and separated them into a category in need of continuous retraining and surveillance. The last scene is about parting and meeting of ‘intimate enemies.’ They were the prisoners who hesitated between ‘potential enemy’ and ‘Orient communist’ but chose a third country. They were called ‘reds’ in a Korean community in the third country they had chosen and held another identity the Korean government gave as ‘anticommunist prisoners.’ The repatriates were allies but classified as an ‘intimate enemy.’ These four scenes seen in the photographs of war prisoners were a source of conflict in memory or conflict between generations that the nation or collective memory brought about. This study attempted to look for a true self of prisoners of war by removing contradicting images by the nation, individual prisoners, and collective memories. The existence and perception of war prisoners have been distorted in the collective memories, and the perspective on converted and repatriated prisoners have remained unchanged under an anticommunist ideology. However, a post-Cold War way of thinking is required that transcends a solid perception of war prisoners based on an anticommunist ideology. Such a change in the perception will serve as the foundation for drawing alternative solutions to issues on prisoners of war.