Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo/Changchun, September 14th Special Article｜A monument of apology from a Japanese military policeman who invaded China
Xinhua News Agency reporters Chen Ze'an, Li Linxin, and Zhang Boyu
"I hope my father can tell me at least a little bit about what he did in China." 79-year-old Ayako Kurahashi said while standing in front of her father's apology monument at a cemetery in Yoshioka Town, Gunma Prefecture, Japan.
Kurahashi's father Yukichi Osawa was a member of the military police force of the Kwantung Army, the Japanese invading army. He served in Tianjin, Beijing, Dongning City, Heilongjiang Province and other places. When Japan was defeated and surrendered in 1945, Osawa was captured by the Soviet army, but managed to escape and fled back to Japan.
In 1986, before Osawa died of a serious illness, he took out a note from his pillow. "He handed me the note and said, 'When I die, I will engrave these on my tombstone,'" Kurahashi recalled.
"Served in the old army for 12 years and eight months, including ten years as a lower-level cadre of the Chinese Army (former military police warrant officer)." The note read: "I participated in the war of aggression. I feel deeply guilty for everything I have done to the Chinese people. I can only express my deep apology to the Chinese people."
Kurahashi said that her father once told her that he regretted participating in the war of aggression against China as a military policeman and wanted to carve a monument of apology, but he never mentioned what he did in China. However, Cangqiao's uncle and brother strongly opposed the erection of a monument of apology, believing that this move would bring disgrace to the family.
"Why did my father apologize?" This question has been lingering in Cangqiao's mind.
In order to clear up the doubts, Kurahashi contacted a former colleague of his father in the military police force and sent him a letter telling him his father's last words of apology and imploring him to tell him what his father had done back then. "He had mixed feelings when he saw the photos of my father in old age, but he never revealed the situation back then." Kurahashi said.
With regret, Cangqiao began to take the initiative to participate in study and seminars on the history of Japan's war of aggression against China, and thus met Li Suzhen, executive vice president of the Japan-China Oral History and Culture Research Association and distinguished professor of Changchun Normal University.
"The Japanese military police have great arresting power." Li Suzhen said bluntly that Cangqiao's father may have done unspeakable evil things, so he wanted to apologize.
Seiya Matsuno, a researcher at the Institute of International Peace at Meiji Gakuin University in Japan, told Xinhua News Agency reporters in Tokyo on the 12th: "When the Kwantung Army was established, the gendarmerie had already appeared in China. With the outbreak of the September 18th Incident and the July 7th Incident, the scope of Japan's aggression continued to expand, and the gendarmerie was also deployed to various parts of China."
Matsuno has long been engaged in research on the modern history of Japan and the history of the Japanese invasion of China. He took out several collected historical materials, opened the "Operation Order" reviewed and approved by the Japanese Ministry of War in 1940, pointed to the above content and said: "Title Seven clearly stipulates the tasks of the military police, including protecting military aircraft, searching for spies, censoring communications and public opinion institutions, etc., as well as suppressing the so-called 'hostile residents', that is, suppressing those residents who resisted the Japanese army and refused to cooperate with the Japanese army."
Matsuno took out another copy of the Kwantung Army Military Police report. This report, marked "secret", records the treatment plan for a "spy": this person does not have the value of "reverse exploitation" (that is, being instigated and exploited by Japan), and it is recommended that he be "specially transferred." "'Special transfer' means special transfer, which means sent to Unit 731." Matsuno said. Unit 731 was known to the outside world as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department of the Japanese Kwantung Army" and carried out a large number of human experiments, biological warfare, germ warfare and other evil acts during World War II.
"During Japan's invasion and occupation, the Military Police served as the 'pawns' and 'vanguard' of the Japanese army's suppression of the local people. They had great power and were a very terrifying organization." Matsuno said that Kurahashi's father was a military police warrant officer at the time. The military police warrant officer usually performed various tasks under the command on the front line. He may be responsible for searching, arresting and suppressing anti-Japanese people on a daily basis.
In Cangqiao's impression, his father had a strict temperament, but once, his father shed tears while watching a program on TV about the war of aggression against China. "He said at the time that there are two types of people. One type will cry loudly and beg for mercy before being killed, but there is another type of person who will firmly look straight ahead even when they are killed." Kurahashi said: "I think my father must have suffered from thinking about those people they killed."
Although he was unable to find out what his father had done in China, Cangqiao always remembered his father's wish to erect a monument of apology. After the death of his brother who opposed the erection of the monument, Cangqiao wrote to his nephew to obtain his approval.
In 1998, Cangqiao erected another monument in the corner of the family cemetery, fully engraved with his father's apology. Osawa's last wish was finally fulfilled.
Kurahashi has since traveled to China many times to express his father's apology. During this period, she visited the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War Memorial Hall, the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invaders, Dongning City in Heilongjiang Province and other places, and saw more records about the Japanese invasion of China. "Every place gave me a great impact."
As a former Japanese junior high school teacher, Kurahashi said frankly that Japan has not fully reflected on the war. In Japanese school classes, teachers will teach about some of the places the Japanese troops visited, but will not go into detail about what they did there.
Kurahashi called on Japan to reflect on its history of aggression and hoped that his father's apology inscription could be spread more widely. Today, Japan's rightward shift is intensifying, and the "new militarism" trend is on the rise. She was worried that the monument would be maliciously damaged, so she decided to donate a replica of the monument to Changchun Normal University this year.
"'What disappears from the eyes will also disappear from the heart.' I do not hope that this sentence will become a reality one day. I sincerely hope that this apology monument will never be damaged and will stand here forever to reveal the historical truth and protect world peace." Kurahashi said.
