The Korean Deportation and Life in Central Asia 155Article 10 and the notes in Belaia kniga state that Stalin was to be notified of
the number of Koreans who elected to cross the border(s). Articles 11 and 12
increased the security at Manchurian and Korean border points with the Soviet
Union. Article 12 allowed NKVD officers to quarter themselves in the homes
of the exiled Koreans. One unwritten rule of the Korean deportation order
was that, for mixed- nationality families, the nationality of the husband deter-
mined the nationality of the family. If the husband was Korean and the wife
non- K orean, they were deported; if vice versa, the family was not deported.
Twelve members of mixed- nationality families where the husband was Korean
and the wife non- Korean were deported from northern Sakhalin in 1937.^23
Similar considerations applied in the case of ethnic Germans; for example,
“In families where the head of the family is not of the German nationality and
the wife is German, in this case, the family is not deported.”^24
Despite the August decree, the pro cess of deporting Koreans in Poset,
Spassk, and western Khanka districts was delayed by around twenty days in
order to allow the farmers to finish harvesting the crops. Fi nally, Resolution
1847–377ss, signed on September 28, 1937, by V. Molotov and N. Petru-
nichev, ordered the deportation of the remaining Koreans in the Dalkrai
district (Rus sian Far East).^25 Even Koreans in the Jewish Autonomous Re-
gion such as Lev Chugai’s family were deported. During my interviews
with el derly Korean deportees in Central Asia they were informed of Arti-
cle 5 of the first deportation order that allowed Koreans to cross the border
if they so chose. Kim Chan Nim, a Korean deportee, responded: “We didn’t
have a desire to live in Korea or to move to Korea. I would have liked to
have taken a look around in Korea, but that’s it. We are Uzbek Koreans....
We are proud to have lived in the USSR.”^26 Viktor Li stated: “But there was
nothing to return [to Korea] for. We left there originally because there were
no crops and people were starving.”^27 Maia Kim stated that her parents
would not have wanted to return to Korea, as they considered the RFE their
home and wanted to return there even after their deportation. She said:
“They grew up there, their children were born there. They put down roots
there (oni pustili korni tam).”^28 Many Soviet Koreans indicated a loyalty to the
Rus sian Far East, not simply as a territory, but as a Soviet territory that gave
them their identity as bilingual Russian- and Korean- speaking socialists.
Most Koreans were given from one week to one month to prepare
their t hings and show up at the train station to be deported on a par tic u lar
given day. They left behind or gave away the majority of their possessions.
Many families prepared an official inventory (opis), which they turned in to
the administration for reimbursement of their goods, equipment, homes,
and livestock. Approximately eight of the sixty Koreans who were inter-
viewed indicated that they had received reimbursement under Article 4 of