The Sagami Reservoir is Japan’s first multi-purpose synthetic lake constructed between 1940 and 1947. To construct the reservoir, Japan requisitioned about 3.6 million laborers, together with practically 300 Chinese forcibly taken to Japan by the invading Japanese navy.
TOKYO, July 29 (Xinhua) — At the scenic Sagami Lake in Kanagawa Prefecture, a preferred summer season getaway in Japan, lies a hidden and painful historical past — certainly one of compelled labor, struggling, and demise involving multinational laborers in the course of the development of the Sagami Lake reservoir.
On Sunday, greater than 350 folks, together with native residents, college students, and representatives from China, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, gathered on the Sagami Lake Exchange Center to mourn the laborers who died in the course of the dam’s development.
The Sagami Reservoir is Japan’s first multi-purpose synthetic lake constructed between 1940 and 1947. To construct the reservoir, Japan requisitioned about 3.6 million laborers, together with practically 300 Chinese forcibly taken to Japan by the invading Japanese navy.
Due to harsh working situations and therapy, 28 Chinese laborers died amongst different recorded victims.
Mayor Kentaro Motomura of Sagamihara City mentioned on the ceremony that many employees, together with Chinese and Korean laborers, paid with their lives underneath extraordinarily harsh situations. “We must remember the history, forged by so many precious lives, and pass it down to future generations,” he mentioned.
In 1976, involved Japanese residents shaped a committee to uncover and protect the historic reality. Since 1979, they’ve held annual memorial companies.
Toshiko Hashimoto, now in her 70s and one of many founding members of the committee, shared historic information exhibiting the cruelty confronted by Chinese compelled laborers: lengthy hours from daybreak to nightfall, poor vitamin and rampant illness because of malnourishment and abuse.
To honor the victims, a memorial stone was erected close to Sagami Lake, inscribed with the names of the deceased laborers. In 2020, an info panel subsequent to the monument was maliciously vandalized, with phrases comparable to “forced labor” intentionally defaced.
Despite exterior stress, Hashimoto and her colleagues have by no means given up their efforts to protect the reality. With assist from numerous events, the panel was restored, and the memorial ceremony continues to be held yearly as scheduled.
“Because it’s a dark part of history, we must not hide it,” Hashimoto mentioned. “Society should confront and speak about it openly.”
Hashimoto recalled a second within the Seventies throughout a go to to rural China when a blind aged man shouted at them in anger. She did not perceive his phrases however felt his ache. “Even though we were born after the war, by remaining silent, we become complicit,” she mirrored. “Ignorance of historical atrocities is also a crime.”
At the ceremony, Kang Xiaolei, a counselor from the Chinese Embassy in Japan, emphasised that compelled labor was a grave crime dedicated by Japanese militarism. He expressed appreciation to the organizers for his or her long-standing efforts and harassed that remembering historical past is essential to preserving peace.
This yr marks the eightieth anniversary of the victory within the World Anti-Fascist War. As many authentic members of the committee age, incoming chairperson Mei Furusawa vowed to proceed the mission: “If we don’t speak, the history will be forgotten. It is our responsibility to tell the children what happened here.”