Descendants of wartime Korean workers remember their past in new museum

Descendants of wartime Korean workers remember their past in new museum

What should also be remembered is how the family fortunes of many Japan Inc. and LDP leaders was built upon this foundation.

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

—Balzac

Utoro households went entirely without water...until 1988..."

I spent a short amount of time in Osaka city in the 1980s close to a Korean area, and living standards were third world. Shanty towns along the river. People living in shacks, including under the arches of the Shinkansen tracks and in the swampy grounds under the Juso bridge.

Sigh, despite much that is laudable about Japan, I sometimes wonder if it is really an advanced society living in the 21st century.

Residents supported each other in the years after the war, and with cheaper rents, the neighborhood also attracted Koreans from other parts of Japan.

Referring to it, the article title is a bit misleading as many ethnic Korean residents in Japan are not necessarily descendants of former wartime workers. Besides their experiences are in the postwar period.

Utro and its surrounding areas are now going through renovation projects, and will be missing many legacies. The museum is worth visiting.

They are descendants so its not actually their past .

When my grandfather fought in the Pacific, many POW camps were liberated. The prisoners were slave laborers who were required to work or die (most worked and died), yet their descendants aren’t building museums in their honor. Prisoners of war were also put to work in factories and mines here in Japan, a large percentage of them died of disease and malnutrition, yet there are no museums dedicated to their suffering. The only thing resembling a museum is in Kanchanaburi in Thailand, where the Japanese built the Thailand-Burma railway. Each tie (wooden beam) laid under the rails cost 1 human life. Some 150,000 men died as slaves to build this railway, but their sacrifice is seen as less important than Korean comfort women and factory workers pressed into labor.

Kyo wa heiwa dayo ne: "They are descendants so its not actually their past."

Ignorant comment. Did you miss the part about families being raised there, and their families, and many of them suffering the same struggles and legal battles? Sure, the grandkids of the original slave laborers (doesn't mention the original landowners in that context, does it?) weren't also forced to build the runway, no, but they were still very much involved in the suffering, discrimination, and other problems that STILL in some cases plague the area.

But, by your logic, once the remaining survivors of the atomic bombings die Hiroshima and Nagasaki should stop talking about "legacy" and "survivors" and the descendants be told the have no right to say any of it is part of their past -- including their parents/grandparents' suffering which they may have been exposed to in their own lives?

sangetsu03Today  10:04 am JST

The only thing resembling a museum is in Kanchanaburi in Thailand, where the Japanese built the Thailand-Burma railway. Each tie (wooden beam) laid under the rails cost 1 human life. Some 150,000 men died as slaves to build this railway, but their sacrifice is seen as less important than Korean comfort women and factory workers pressed into labor.

True. And to fill out lur knowlede of history:

"Many of the guards on the railway were Japanese colonial soldiers from Korea or Formosa. Harshly treated by the Japanese, they behaved with particular brutality toward the prisoners in their control. After the war, this man was sentenced to death and executed for his brutal treatment of prisoners."

https://www.awm.gov.au/visit/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/japan/burmathai/story1

I’ll go and have a look this GW

Go to every RSA (returned services association) in Aussie, especially in small towns, famous for cheep booze and pub lunches, and you will find a small museum like corner dedicated to the horrors of Japanese. As a tourist with a Japanese partner, it was a little uncomfortable even though it’s a different century. But we have to learn from history, not hide it.

Give more money...