ABSTRACT
State Educational Center (SEC) no. 2 was an educational institute established in Poland by the North Korean and Polish governments in 1953. It accommodated 1,000 orphans from the Korean War to nurture productive future socialists for war-ravaged North Korea. There, the orphans lived regimented everyday lives that provided elementary education and taught them bodily and emotional self-discipline. After returning to North Korea in 1959, the orphans continued with hectic everyday lives filled with study and work. This chapter defines SEC no. 2 as an educational initiative in socialist internationalism during the Cold War, where different national interests and cultural understandings of a socialist educational vision clashed, alongside with the fluctuating international atmosphere in the socialist bloc. In addition, the chapter analyzes how the orphans processed their formative experiences. Based on the orphans’ letters to their Polish teachers, it argues that the goal and legacy of SEC no. 2 were subsumed into the everyday life of the orphans in postwar North Korean society. The educational goal of North Korea at SEC no. 2 was left in the hands of the orphans to “digest” by themselves, which they did in a mundane fashion alongside their own interests in postwar North Korean society.
