북한여성들이 겪은 한국전쟁-전쟁동원활동과 체제하의 생존전략-

Abstract

This paper examines the wartime experiences of North Korean women during the Korean War, based on the oral interviews with eight North Korean female defectors to South Korea since the year 2000. The interviewees were between fourteen and twenty-three years old in 1950, and seven women were born in North Korea and one defected to North Korea during the wartime. The eight women experienced the Korean War as a student, soldier, police woman, housewife, and government employee. According to the interview, North Korean women groped for the ways for the survival and safety of family under the repressive system. The wartime decision of defection to North Korea was motivated by personal desire for continuation of learning. Some women married men who defected from South Korea as lack of men in marital age during wartime, and the fact that their husband’s native place was South Korea and their relatives in South Korea affected their decision to defect to South Korea in some way. This means the necessity of looking at the impact of Korean War in a long-term perspective and comparative study of women’s wartime experiences between the South and the North based on the conception and methodology of women’s history.