[Interview] Gaining justice for the young Korean women forced to work in Japanese factories is his destiny

Posted on : 2017-08-15 16:47 KST Modified on : 2017-08-15 16:47 KST
Since 1987, Makoto Takahashi has worked to tell the story of the Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps
Makoto Takahashi is the co-president of a Nagoya-based group supporting a lawsuit brought by members of the Korean Women‘s Volunteer Labor Corps who were forced to work for Mitsubishi during World War II.
Makoto Takahashi is the co-president of a Nagoya-based group supporting a lawsuit brought by members of the Korean Women‘s Volunteer Labor Corps who were forced to work for Mitsubishi during World War II.

“This list was our starting point,” said Makoto Takahashi as he showed a Hankyoreh reporter a copy of an internal document from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on Aug. 9. Takahashi, 75, is the co-president of a group in Nagoya supporting a lawsuit by members of the Korean Women's Volunteer Labor Corps who worked for Mitsubishi in Nagoya.

In 1987, Takahashi (who was teaching world history at a high school in Nagoya at the time) was given a 45-page document by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as part of his research into local history about the war. The document contained the names of six young Korean women, one of whom was Choi Jeong-rye, who had been working at a Mitsubishi airplane plant in Nagoya when she was killed in the Tonankai Earthquake in Dec. 1944 at the age of 14. At the end of July 1988, Takahashi traveled to South Korea for the first time and spent several weeks visiting the addresses listed in the document and tracking down the surviving family members. This was when he first met Lee Gyeong-ja, 74, wife of Choi’s nephew. On Aug. 8, a Gwangju District Court ruled partially in Lee’s favor in a lawsuit requesting compensation for Choi being drafted to work for the Korean Women's Volunteer Labor Corps.

On Aug. 6, Takahashi paid his respects at the May 18th National Cemetery in Gwangju with 25 high school teachers from Japan’s Aichi Prefecture. This was his 100th visit to South Korea since 1987. He was the first to bring to light the tragic deaths of young Korean women during Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea, women who would otherwise have been forgotten. Between 1944 and 1945, Korean teenage women between the ages of 13 and 15 were sent to Japanese munitions factories run by companies like Mitsubishi and Fujikoshi Steel, where they worked without receiving any wages. The greatest number of these women came from Jeolla Province (138) and Chungcheong Province (150).

“If German reporter Jürgen Hinzpeter in the movie ‘A Taxi Driver’ was the first foreigner to alert the world to the Gwangju massacre, Takahashi was the first foreigner to bring attention to the issue of the Korean Women's Volunteer Labor Corps,” said Lee Sang-gap, 49, a lawyer who is co-president of a civic group supporting the women who worked for the labor corps.

“Even then, women forced to work in the Korean Women's Volunteer Labor Corps weren’t allowed to mention the name of the corps,” said Takahashi. Because the labor corps was often conflated with the comfort women, he explained, these women were hesitant to testify about their experiences.

Thanks to Takahashi’s efforts, a memorial stone inscribed with the names of 57 victims of the earthquake, including the six young Korean women, was installed in Dec. 1988 in an empty lot in Nagoya where a factory once stood. The memorial service was attended by former members of the labor corps, including Yang Geum-deok (89, from Yangdong, Gwangju), and surviving relatives, such as the older sister of Choi Jeong-rye.

“News about setting up the memorial stone was reported all over Japan, and as a result we were contacted by the grandson of the superintendent of the Mitsubishi dormitory. He let us make copies of 60 photographs of the Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps in his possession,” Takahashi said. These photographs served as important historical evidence of the labor corps’ existence.

The Nagoya group supporting the lawsuit was established in 1998 by more than 1,100 lawyers, professors and teachers. The group actively helped former members of the labor corps sue the Japanese government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Mar. 1999 for compensation. Their lawsuit was ultimately dismissed in 2008 by the Supreme Court of Japan.

In Sept. 2007, the Nagoya group launched a protest called “Friday Action.” As part of the protest, members head from Nagoya to the Mitsubishi headquarters in Tokyo every Friday (coinciding with a weekly meeting by the presidents of Mitsubishi affiliates) and demand that an apology be made and compensation be paid. The Friday Action protest has been held 382 times so far. A group of citizens who support the former members of the labor corps was also established in Gwangju in Mar. 2009, and that group is carrying on its campaign in solidarity with Japan.

In July 2016, Mitsubishi Materials (formerly the Mitsubishi Mining Company) agreed to pay 100,000 RMB (around US$14,980) each to 12 Chinese workers who had been drafted to work in the company’s mines. But Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is still ignoring the demands of Koreans who were drafted as workers.

“I really expect that the issue of compulsory mobilization will be resolved under President Moon Jae-in,” Takahashi said. “When Koreans forced to work in Hiroshima filed a damages lawsuit against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in May 2000, their attorney was President Moon,” he explained.

Since 2000, 16 damages lawsuits have been filed in South Korean courts against Japanese companies guilty of war crimes, and four of these are currently pending at the Supreme Court. Noting that the Supreme Court had recognized individuals’ rights to make claims in May 2012, Takahashi said, “If the Supreme Court makes a final ruling, I think that could be the basis for moving forward on deliberations with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that are aimed at a solution.”

“This seems to be my destiny. Just as Hegel said, all necessity is expressed through chance,” Takahashi said. “God appears to have used the Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps issue to arrange a marriage between my daughter and son-in-law,” he added.

His daughter met her future husband, a man from South Korea, while studying in Canada. “Just as a small rock creates ripples when it is thrown into a pond, I hope that an agreement between South Korea and Japan on the Korean Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps issue will lead to peace talks in Northeast Asia,” he said.

Takahashi unveiled an important decision in front of members of the Gwangju group for the labor corps whom he met on his 100th visit to South Korea. “After I die, I’m going to be cremated, and I’m planning to ask that half of my ashes be sprinkled above Mt. Mudeung in Gwangju. I’m going to tell my family this when I return to Japan.”

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

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

 

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