To make all the people in the world happy

Ai Sugiura

A lot of people may consider the meaning of POWs and World War II.  World War II was over about 60 years ago, so more and more victims of the war have been passing away. Moreover, Japan decided to renounce war in the Constitution, so we don’t need to worry about future war or POWs any more. Apparently, the study of POWs doesn’t seem to have so much meaning when considering these things. However is it true? The answer is no. It is very important for people involved with the POW issue. In addition, studying POW issue should lead to the better world in the future.

If one of our family or friends were a POW and suffered from injuries or died before the end of the war, we couldn’t overlook the issue of POWs and would try to know about the truth of it. In fact my grandmother’s cousin was interned in Siberia after World War II. That’s why I’ve been very interested in the Allied POWs. The issue of Siberian internment is partly different from the issue of POWs, but they have something in common. So my knowledge about the Siberian Internment helps me study POWs.

In Japan, the Siberian Internment is the most familiar issue concerning about people who were held in captivity related to World War II. After World War II, the Japanese Army were taken prisoner by the Soviet Army. As soon as World War II is over, about 600,000 or more Japanese soldiers, including some civilians and about 30,000 Koreans and Chinese, were taken to Siberia, which was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics territory. The number of concentration camps was no fewer than 2000, and internees were forced to work. This internment was carried out following the Stalin’s top secret order on August 23th, 1945, and it was executed as a part of the reconstruction plan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Eventually 62,000 people died in this internment because of starvation, the severe cold, or infectious diseases. Other people were released at last, and almost all of them came back to their hometowns by April, 1950.

My grandmother’s cousin was lucky to come back. He had such a bitter experience. He was imposed compulsory labor just like the POWs held by the Japanese Army. As you know, Siberia is freezing cold and the internees were in a terrible environment. He was suffering from frostbite in his fingers. One of his nails has still gangrene. It occurred 60 years ago, but he has tucked the memory into himself. He has never told me the story about the internment, and I heard this story from my grandmother. He told this story to only few people. I want to know more about it, but it’s impossible.

However, I was very lucky to have an opportunity to meet some Australians who were Japanese POWs during World War II.  As I think of my grandmother’s cousin, who would never tell us the story about his internment days, it must be very painful for him to recollect the experience. However, those Australian former POWs told us a lot about their experience and they also showed us pictures. At the beginning of that day when I met them, I hesitated to talk about POWs or ask about their experience considering their feelings. In addition, they were taken prisoner by the ‘Japanese’ Army so I was very nervous about it. However, they were very kind and talked with us very friendlily in spite of my worry. I can’t appreciate enough for that they gave us a lot. At high school, I had studied the Siberian internment but had never studied the Allied POWs held by Japan, so that opportunity was very precious. They made me more interested in POWs. After that, I read some books and articles about POWs. The content of the website, US–Japan Dialogue on POWs, is very useful for me in my studying American POWs.  It’s difficult to study the issue of POWs from the viewpoint of more than one country, but this website enables me to do it. It was also more shocking to read it rather than reading books which contain only facts but not personal emotions.

I was especially horrified to read what the Japanese soldiers did to American POWs. They beat POWs. They pumped water in POWs’ lung. They keep POWs standing in attention without food till the POWs became unconscious. I was shocked to read the Sascha Jean Jansen’s story in the website, which included the story that the Japanese Soldiers had just drowned a young Filipino boy in a bathtub on a lawn in Manila and they laughed and jeered and hopped with joy on their feet as the wet, lifeless body of this child was taken away.

These actions were just as cruel as what the Nazis did during World War II. Not only the U.S. people but also Japanese should recognize the facts properly. However, most Japanese don’t try to know the real history.  I learned about the atomic bombs, the Great Air Raid of Tokyo, Japanese air raid on Midway, and a wholesale slaughter in Nanking. But they are only a part of the real history. I think the most important thing is that all Japanese appreciate the true facts, of course including what the Japanese did to the Japanese POWs. In order to appreciate the history, it may be essential that the Japanese Government admit what Japan did during World War II completely.

I’ve read some books about the Japanese POWs held by the US and the POWs held by Japan during World War I, so the essays on the website surprised me very much. The American soldiers gave respectable environment to the Japanese POW’s. They gave enough food, they cured the Japanese POWs if they were sick or injured, and the Japanese POWs could sleep enough. Because of this environment, the death rate for Japanese POWs held by America is less than American POWs. Besides it is famous that the Japanese soldiers gave the better environment to POWs during the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. It is also said that Japanese soldiers meet the Russo POWs at hospitality during Russo-Japanese War. However, it was absolutely different during World War II. The reason of the horrible attitude to the American POWs may not be simple, but the war situation is one of the reasons. Japan was inferior to America during World War II and Japan was about to lose. Japan couldn’t afford to comply with the international law. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were blamed for the attitude to the American POWs in the Potsdam Declaration. However, very few Japanese know this fact now. We have to know this fact and compare the POW history of each country. We can appreciate the real history by doing that

Japan tends to be “introverted,” and sometimes won’t listen to others’ opinions. It leads to creation of a barrier between Japan and other countries. Recently a very interesting article caught my eyes. It was an article about the Nazi. It read as follows:

   Making A Denial of Holocaust Leads to Prison

                                           February 21 2006 /Vienna

 On February 20^th, 2006, the Court in Wien, capital of Austria, condemned a British historian to 3 year-imprisonment, because he made a denial of Holocaust by the Nazi. In Austria and Germany, making a denial of Holocaust is prohibited by law.

What a contrast there is between this attitude and that of Japan. This article may be an extreme example, but I think Japan can follow this example and face the facts as facts. Japan can’t establish friendly relations with other countries until Japan tries to know the truth of the history.

After studying about the Japanese POWs, we have to do something for the future. It goes without saying that appreciating the truth of history is indispensable for much better relationship, but knowing feelings or ideas of people of other countries is as important as knowing the facts. We tend to shape a self-satisfying idea without understanding their feelings toward history of World War II. Young people in the U.S. and Japan can’t know all about the war, but can make the world better by exchanging opinions very frankly. We must not let another war break out. We must make a peaceful world. It depends on us.

During hostilities, young people have enough energy to invent new machines one after another. I regret that they were used in order to hurt people, but let’s make the best of this enormous energy to make all the people in the world happy. We can do it! And we must do it at all costs!