“We Mass Cremated Koreans”: Japan

The Japanese government acknowledged for the first time that some of the remains of Koreans, who died in the Pacific War after being forcefully drafted as civilians attached to the Japanese military, at Yuten Temple were from mass cremations. This means that the Japanese authorities during the war conducted mass cremation of Koreans’ bodies and kept the remains by putting the same amount of them in the same number of boxes as those cremated.

A truth committee about coerced draft during the Japanese colonial era quoted yesterday the Japanese Foreign Ministry as saying so in its letter sent to the committee through the Korean embassy in Japan on January 17, the day after Dong-A Ilbo reported that at least seven out of 704 remains of Koreans at the temple did not match their identity.

The committee sent “questionnaires on Koreans’ remains at Yuten Temple” last December to Japan without receiving any response at fifth Korea-Japan conference on remains investigation.

Lee Jae-cheol, a PR official at the committee, said, “It seems that the Japanese government is attempting to offer an explanation, as the report on the remains at Yuten prompted Japanese media outlets to criticize their government’s handling of Korean’s remains, giving rise to public criticism.”

Dividing the remains by the number of those cremated-

The Japanese Foreign Ministry said in its reply that the remains of 280 Koreans who died in the Japanese naval vessel Ukishima were collected from a mass cremation.

The reply is official acknowledgement by the Japanese government of the longstanding speculation that the remains might have been mixed in a mass cremation. It also means that there is high possibility that the other 855 remains at the temple were also from mass cremation.

If this is the case, the DNA test of the remains to be returned to Korea which civic groups and experts demand can be meaningless because a DNA test is virtually impossible when the remains are mixed.

A superficial reply-

The Japanese government released its official answers to the keeping and treatment process of the Korean’s remains at Yuten Temple, but it was short on substance.

There are only brief answers, such as, “We understand that there was mass cremation of those who died in Ukishima and that the remains were divided by the number of those who died and were kept in boxes.” There is no specific explanation as to how many bodies were cremated en masse.

Regarding the question that the names of those who died in Korea after the war ended and those are alive remain on the list of the ashes, it said, “It is impossible to confirm how the list was created back then.” Kim Gwang-yeol, a Japanese Studies professor at Kwangwoon University, said, “It is a superficial reply that the Japanese government reluctantly sent just to put down public criticism.”

Meanwhile, Kim In-seong, a co-chief executive of a civic group to find the truth of the forced draft of Koreans during the Japanese colonial era, said, “My opinion that the remains to be returned to Korea should undergo a DNA test hasn’t changed,” adding, “But I’m also considering requesting the Korean government to install a joint incense-burning room for the remains from mass cremation.”

turtle@donga.com