Gulwat

Gulwat is the site where more than 80 villagers were massacred by soldiers on January 17, 1949.

After massacring villagers in Neobeunsungee, Bukchon-ri, earlier that day, the soldiers stopped in Dongbok-ri and gathered the villagers at Jangbokbat. Gulwat is where the villagers gathered at Jangbokbat were taken and massacred. Jangbokbat is recorded as being near a nettle tree overlooking Iljudongro from Gulwat, which is now occupied by a building.

At the time, members of the Kimnyeong-ri Civil Defense surrounded the area, and soldiers from the 11th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment stationed in Woljeong-ri massacred the residents with rifles and submachine guns. The names of the victims are inscribed on the Dongbok-ri April 3rd Victims' Memorial Tower.

After the massacre, the soldiers burned down the village's houses and moved the residents to neighboring Kimnyeong-ri. Life was said to have been miserable for the residents of Dongbok-ri. On January 20, 1949, three days after the massacre, about 10 Dongbok-ri residents who had fled were sacrificed in front of the Gimnyeong Public Hall. The villagers returned the following year from the quarantin period in Gimnyeong-ri and rebuilt their villages, building castles.

When I visited the Gulwat site on October 13, 2022, there was no signboard explaining its history and no trace of it. According to the Gujwa-eup village directory, the name "Gulwat" comes from the Jeju word for "field in a hollow," as the land is lower2than the roadside.