Brothers Separated for 70 Years Allowed Brief, Tear-Filled Reunion

By Amanda Thomason August 27, 2018 at 3:41pm

Not many people know what it’s like to be reunited with someone they haven’t seen in 70 years and thought had died. But two brothers in Korea both had an emotional reunion when they were finally allowed to meet after seven decades.

Ham Sung-Chan, the brother who now lives in South Korea, is the one that was able to give quotes to the press. It’s a miracle in itself that Ham is still alive, at the very respectable age of 93, according to the Associated Press as mentioned by CTV News.

Ham was cut off from his home in North Korea when the war began in 1950. He was a salesman, and had been out working, but he never made it home.

Escaping to South Korea, Ham came to terms with the fact that he’d probably never see his family again — and worse, they might not even be alive anymore.

But he got a breath of fresh air and a huge surprise when he found his mother in 1983. She, too, had escaped and was living in South Korea.

Meanwhile, Ham Dong Chan, a long-lost brother, was living in North Korea. In fact, decades later, when authorities approached him about the possibility of meeting his older brother, he was convinced they’d gotten the wrong person.

“He told the authorities that it must be a different person with the same name because he was so convinced that I had died,” said Ham. “When North Korean officials asked again, this time mentioning the names of our parents, he was shocked.”

Elated to be able to see each other at last, the two brothers had to wait for the Separated Family Reunion Meeting in North Korea. Ham’s children prepared by buying gifts for the uncle they’d never known, amassing four large bags full of South Korean delicacies and practical items like clothing and medicine.

Ham and his family were groomed to act appropriately once they were on North Korean soil. They got to the reunion location the day before the meeting.

“I couldn’t sleep at all that night,” Ham said. But when the next day finally came, it was like they hadn’t missed a moment of companionship: As soon as Ham entered the room, his brother spotted him.

“He yelled, ‘Brother, it’s me!’ I recognized him right away. He was still that skinny, quiet kid,” Ham said. “Maybe our bloodlines pulled us together.”

Over the next three days, the brothers talked for four-hour blocks of time. They caught each other up with their lives, reviewing births, deaths, and major milestones.

“Once I heard that he was living in Pyongyang,” Ham said, “I was relieved. As brothers, we had so much to talk about over so little time.”

“But other South Korean relatives were meeting North Korean nephews they’d never seen — some of them told me it was hard to keep a conversation going after 30 minutes.”

The 12 hours were short but sweet, and Ham was rueful that they hadn’t been allowed more time.

“There’s a large sense of dejection that has set in. The time we spent together was too short, way too short. It wasn’t a week; it wasn’t 10 days. Just after we met, we had to depart.”

And as he left his brother and returned home, he said that despite promising he wouldn’t cry, he let his emotions show. “I had told myself, ‘I won’t cry, I won’t cry.’ But I exploded with tears.”

At least the two brothers now have some closure after 70 years, and they know a little more about the brother they were sure they’d lost.

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