hankyoreh

An exhibit at the Industrial Heritage Information Center in Tokyo on Hashima Island (Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island), where hundreds of Koreans were mobilized to perform forced labor during the Japanese colonial occupation. (provided by the Industrial Heritage Information Center)

Sixty-four South Korean and Japanese civic groups issued a joint statement calling on the recently opened Industrial Heritage Information Center in Tokyo to “stop distorting history” with its displays. Forty-nine Japanese groups involved in peace, religious activities, and historical issues took part.

In a statement issued on the afternoon of July 14, the groups insisted that the Japanese government should “honor the promise it made when it registered the Meiji Industrial Revolution-related facilities as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2015.” At the time of their registration, Japan pledged to adopt measures to commemorate Korean victims of forced labor. But the exhibits on Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution sites -- including Hashima Island (also known as Gunkanjima, or “Battleship Island”) -- that were opened to the public on June 15 included no such content. Indeed, most of the displays presented a skewed version of history, with claims that laborers “lived in good conditions” and were “free.”

“Japan continues denying its history of forced labor,” the groups said, characterizing the actions as “flying in the face of the UNESCO spirit of achieving peace through the pursuit of intellectual and spiritual solidarity among the world’s citizens.”

“We protest the exhibitions at the industrial heritage information center,” they continued, insisting that it “should belatedly incorporate displays relating the conditions and testimony of victims of forced labor.”

On June 22, the South Korean government submitted a request to UNESCO asking it to examine revoking the World Heritage registration of Japan’s industrialization sites due to the industrial heritage information center’s inclusion of displays distorting the history of Gunkanjima.

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]