172 Chapter 7
or “agents of Japa nese espionage.” Mr. Ti participated as a translator in hun-
dreds of these trials from 1935 to 1941.
Khai Ir Ti and his family emigrated from Manchuria to Chernogorsk
in 1934. Khai Ir Ti was born in Korea but had spent his adolescence in
Manchuria in the Korean district of Gando/Chientao. He learned Chinese
and Korean in school. Later, he participated in a partisan regiment with
Kim Il Sung. Anna Ti (see Figure 15) stated that many of the members of
Kim Il Sung’s partisan regiment fled to Rus sia in 1934 with the Japa nese
Army in dogged pursuit. Khai Ir Ti quickly found work in the coal mines of
Chernogorsk. The Korean miners were poor, and hundreds lived together in
their own barracks in Chernogorsk. Khai Ir Ti quickly rose to become a
foreman for the Korean miners. In 1935, he was hired by the NKVD when
it became known that he was fluent in Korean, Chinese, and Rus sian.^119
Anna Ti recalled that in 1936 the NKVD began arresting Koreans in
groups of eight to ten. They were given quick hearings and asked only simple
questions such as their occupation, place of birth, and other such data. Most
of the Korean miners spoke Rus sian poorly. They felt helpless during these
trials. The trials were quick and summary. They were tried as “Japa nese spies”
and sentenced from eight to twelve years in labor camps (gulags). Anna re-
counted many nights when her father would come home after work and
painfully recite the day’s proceedings to his family. Her father repeated this
habit night after night for several years. She recalled: “My father would
come home at night and tell us: ‘They [the NKVD] take three pictures of
them, front, side, and back view. They [the Koreans] were charged with be-
ing Japa n ese spies. Most had not even seen a Japa nese before. They were not
even given a chance to respond. This is a real unlawfulness [ here]. A civi-
lized state would not do this. This is no kind of civilization!’ ”^120 At the same
time, Ms. Ti insisted that her father was innocent of any guilt, as he did not
directly arrest or sentence any of the Korean or Chinese miners. Khai Ir Ti
also felt indebted to the NKVD and the work they had offered. It lifted him
out of the mines and provided him and his family with an apartment in a
nice section of town among other state cadres and access to schools, shops,
and rations that they had previously only dreamt of.
Yet the Korean community was seized by fear during the Terror. No
one spoke to each other during the day or the night, despite the fact that the
Korean workers and miners typically shared living quarters in barracks.
From time to time, Anna Ti and her father would return to the Korean
mining barracks where two of her uncles resided. On his return, Khai Ir Ti
was met with feigned indifference from some Koreans, while others could
scarcely hide their fear, contempt, and hatred of their former coworker and
mining foreman turned NKVD agent/translator.