I have already said that today covers the comic roles very different from those usually assigned to it, filling spaces left empty by guiltily emblazoned publishers of literature "Major".
Further proof of this statement may be in a Korean work - published in Italy in 2006 - that recounts a historical event of the Korean War [1] : Bridge Nogunri.
- The Bridge at No what? -
If you thought so, know that words are identical to those that I have passed through my mind reading the title printed on the red cover of this volume of over 600 pages of Coconino Press, part of a project in several volumes, which unfortunately has not yet seen the fulfillment.
Over time I realized: I was behind a wall too high to see that bridge. But let's get the story. The story is
personally experienced by Chung Eun-Yong (one of two authors of the comic and author of one book from which the balloon is taken) that, in 1950, advancing North Korean troops, was forced to flee with his family the village where he lives, and a few days later, separated from his wife, two sons and elderly parents.
The first part of the story focuses on the long flight Chung, about the tragedies which assists displaced persons, the search for the lost family members, to end with the discovery of his wife in the camp No 19002.
The meeting of the two spouses, which normally would be the end of anxiety related to separation is really the tragedy narrated only the prelude to the second part of the story, that much more raw and painful.
Chung, in fact, he learned of the death of his wife and two children of their parents, killed by men who believed in: the American soldiers. In this deposition
Chung added that gathered over the years by the hands of other witnesses, reconstructing the framework of the story: U.S. troops in retreat, falling into an ambush the day before North Korean soldiers disguised as refugees, in July 1950 had encountered in the vicinity of No Gun Ri in the column of refugees was part of the Chung family, fearing the presence of North Korean infiltrators, had decided on a "preemptive strike", the refugees were, therefore, first bombed by planes, then hit by machine-gun bursts, and they had sought shelter under the arches of a railway bridge (the one that gives the title to the book) and had remained there four days and nights without either food or water, targeted by the soldiers killing anyone who dared to move.
When the Americans were gone, the approximately 500 people who had fled, remained alive only in 25, mostly children whose parents had a shield with his body.
These facts, unknown to me - as I said - and I think to most people.
But, as mentioned, the blame for this ignorance not to be found in Korea. It is all in a wall built thousands of kilometers away from No Gun Ri: the Berlin Wall.
of the story, in fact, the Korean and world public opinion, did not know anything until the end of Soviet and American blocs of opposition, until the fall of the wall that has divided a city, a people, the whole world, a wall is too high making it impossible to see those dirty tubes of blood and also gagged with iron and cement invoking the voices of the victims justice.
For Korea, in truth, and the dead of No Gun Ri, the wall was not demolished in 1989, but - irony of the history of time zones - until 1997, when some survivors of the massacre of Koreans, who met in Association, were able to officially denounce the incident.
Their complaint was taken up by the Associated Press reporter who started a serious work of investigation that led them to discover and publish the truth - in spite of disavowals U.S. military - to achieve, for the seriousness and accuracy of the survey, the Pulitzer Prize [for those who are interested in learning more, provides an accurate guide to the Wikipedia.org entry NO GUN RI (in English)].
only evidence of those facts printed in Italy is now a comic book that, far from children's story, it can certainly take place in the libraries of major historical works, characterized by the seriousness and rigor of the testimony autopsy.
EPILOGUE
The first volume of No Gun Ri bridge, however, does not close with the news of the massacre, leading - in the narrative - until the winter of '55. Chung
rides again, as when he had to leave his village. However this time does not run away: go home.
opens the door.
His wife is in bed, and beside her, a baby. Chung him up, the child begins to cry. It also cries
Chung, mixing with tears of joy who is going back to see the future with the pain, yet vibrant, a father stripped of his sons, while the screams of the little fade in the whistle of a train, on its way exceeds the dark of that bridge with two arches on which many times is forced to return.
Vito Carella
PS I end this article with two of thanks and apology
- thanks to all those who have read (even if they had not enjoyed) the previous article on Hiroshima Gen (obviously with more affection I thank those who have !!!);
welcome - thanks to Julie, for giving me the book recommended that I mentioned [the board with which he is largely redeemed by some unhappy suggestions for which he received several litany of expletives]
- an apology all for the haste with which I happen to write and post items, due to the fact that I can devote to it only Sunday afternoons;
- an apology to Giles, because I do not feel ready yet to face an article in Maus: I promise that we will be working.
[1]
Korea, after more than three decades of Japanese rule during the Second World War had been occupied by the Soviet army in the north, south from the U.S.. At the end of hostilities, the country was divided into two, with a boundary marked along the line of the 38th parallel. In the northern area that there was a Soviet communist government, a nationalist government in the southern pro-American. On the night of June 25, 1950, the sharp ideological contrast, the very close contiguity, the typical climate of suspicion at the beginning of a cold war, pushed the North Korean troops invade the South, collecting, initially, a series of brilliant successes which led up to the occupation of Seoul. The tide of the war to help balance later, with the counter-offensive of the troops in the South and the conclusion of a peace agreement that confirmed the status existing before the war itself. 1.5 million civilians were killed in the conflict, 1 million North Koreans and 500,000 South Koreans.
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