Nam Ja-hyeon
Woman independence fighter called "the mother of the independence army", who died after a hunger strike following her arrest in a 1933 plot against Japan’s ambassador to Manchukuo
Born in Yeongyang, North Gyeongsang, she lost her husband Kim Yeong-ju, killed fighting in the righteous army of 1896, and raised their son while caring for his parents. When the March First Movement broke out she went to Manchuria with her son at forty-seven, joined the Western Route Military Administration, supported the fighters and worked for women's education and churches, becoming known as "the mother of the independence army".
In 1925 she entered Seoul to assassinate Governor-General Saitō Makoto, without success. When the League of Nations' Lytton Commission came to Manchuria in 1932, she cut off her left ring finger and wrote in blood "Korea wishes for independence", sending it to appeal for Korea's freedom.
In 1933, on her way to Harbin with weapons to assassinate Mutō Nobuyoshi, Japan's ambassador to Manchukuo, she was arrested. She resisted with a hunger strike in prison, was released when gravely ill, and died on 22 August 1933, aged sixty-one. She was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea Medal in 1962.