조선인 학병 출신의 기억과 망각 - 학병과 간부후보생 ‘지원’ 동기를 중심으로 -

Abstract

During the late Japanese colonial period, as Japan was put in a defensive corner in the war they had started, they sent even Joseon students receiving higher education out to the warzone. As a result, Joseon students went to the battlefield in January 20, 1944 wearing a Japanese military uniform. After liberation, those who had been student solders showed their collective memories. Right after liberation, they called themselves ‘victims of the nation’ or ‘champions of the nation’. However, after they became the older generation, being aware of the challenge from the younger generation that had not received education during the Japanese colonial period, they distressed themselves between ‘sacrifice’ and ‘pain’ that had made them suffer and ‘collaboration’ that they had done for Japan. Then, when they became elderlies, not to let their memories of student solders be forgotten, they once again emphasized the fact that they had been victims of the nation and had fiercely resisted Japan. However, it is hard to say this attempt was successful, as there were so many rupture points in their collective memories. First of all, most student solders ‘adapted’ to the military life considering the reality, and some even actively tried to realize their ‘desire’ while in service. Especially, many of student solders applied for a cadet to become a ‘commissioned officer’ or a ‘noncommissioned officer’. As the country was liberated before they would become an official commissioned officer, they could be free from the pro-Japanese problem somehow, but the fact that they had desired to become a commissioned officer to be a collaborator of militarism of Japan did not change. Thus, those who had been student solders tried for a long time to erase this fact and make the memories of student solders remain in the name of the nation.