Nan-hee Park left Japan in 1939 to join her fiancé, Won-sup Shim, who lived in a port city on the East Coast of Korea, which was not yet divided into North and South.

As she was preparing to leave, her parents shared a premonition: She'd face tough times in her homeland. But it was just a vague, undefined fear that they did not connect to her fiancé's ardent support of Korea's movement to break free from the control of Imperial Japan.


When Nan-hee boarded the train, she accepted a simple, wood bracelet from her sister, who said, "Remember me whenever you wear this."


Neither sister knew it then, but they'd soon find their lives interrupted by a war that engulfed the world-one that would be quickly followed by a conflict that would separate the people of North and South Korea-leading to even more bloodshed.


Though the war in Korea was forgotten by many, it swept away almost an entire generation-and life was never the same for the survivors. Learn why their stories are worth remembering in The Wood Bracelet.