Last Korean war criminal living in Japan wants recognition
Lee Hak-rae holds of a photo that was taken at a POW camp run by the Japanese army in Thailand in 1942, at his home in Tokyo on June 25 - (Reuters pic)
TOKYO: To the casual observer, 95-year-old Lee Hak-rae could be just another elderly person in Japan.
Surrounded by pictures of his family and paintings by his great-grandchildren, Lee potters about his cluttered living room on the outskirts of Tokyo.
But Lee is obsessed by brutal events of 75 years ago that have defined his life: his recruitment into the Japanese army from then-occupied Korea in 1942; his role in building the Thai-Burma railway; being designated a World War Two criminal; and how, he says, he was tossed into the dustbin of history by both Japan and South Korea.
Since recovering its sovereignty under the San Francisco Peace Treaty signed in 1951, and reviving military pensions in 1953, Japan has given a pension supplement that can add up to about US$41,000 a year to military veterans.
That includes war criminals and their families, government officials say.
Japanese wartime leaders convicted of war crimes by an Allied tribunal are honoured at Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine.
The treaty also meant Koreans who fought for Japan lost their Japanese nationality, and with it, entitlement to such assistance.
More importantly for Lee, the men have never been afforded the attention and a sense of closure given to their Japanese counterparts.
“Listen to me. Why are they treating us differently?” says Lee, switching in a barely audible voice between Korean and Japanese.
“It’s unfair and doesn’t make any sense. How can I accept this unbelievable situation?” Lee said as he clutched dog-eared clippings documenting his years of campaigning for recognition and compensation.
Lee was among 148 Korean war criminals convicted after the war.
Now he is the last survivor.
Twenty-three of them were executed and he too was sentenced to death by hanging as Kakurai Hiromura in 1947.
His sentence was commuted on appeal to 20 years.
He was released on parole from a Tokyo prison in 1956.
About 240,000 Korean men took part in the war on the Japanese side.
After the war, the Allied governments rounding up suspected war criminals treated men of Korean ethnicity as Japanese.
But the men were rejected by both Korea and Japan, historians say.
“The Koreans convicted of war crimes had a terrible time after the war because they were regarded as collaborators by other Koreans, but they weren’t recognised by the Japanese government as veterans,” said Robert Cribb, history professor at Australian National University.
Cribb said it was unfair the Japan gave pensions to their war criminals but not to Koreans who were part of the Japanese army.
The Lizard
In 1943, Lee oversaw about 500 Allied prisoners of war (POW) building what later became known as the Death Railway between Thailand and Myanmar.
About 12,000 POWs died from overwork, beatings and exhaustion during the construction of the 415km line.
The conditions were made famous in the 1957 film “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.
Trial records reviewed by Reuters show prisoners remembered Lee, known as the Lizard, as one of the most brutal guards on the railway.
Austen Fyfe, an Australian POW, said Lee was notorious for his brutality and beat him repeatedly, including with a bamboo stick on the back of the head.
Other prisoners said Lee would stalk their makeshift hospital and “beat up the people he thought to be well enough to work”.
Lee told the court he had “pushed them slightly near the shoulder” but denied charges of brutality, records show.
Lee said Koreans were on the lowest rung of the Japanese military hierarchy and merely took orders.
After his release, Lee started a taxi company with other Korean war criminals.
Afraid of being labelled a traitor back home, he felt he could not return, even missing his mother’s funeral.
“Except my parents and siblings, no one would welcome me,” he said.
In 1999, Japan’s Supreme Court rejected compensation claims by Lee and other Korean war criminals.
In 2006, South Korea recognised them as victims of Japanese imperialism but offered no compensation to those living in Japan.
Those in Korea gained the right to subsidised healthcare.
Lee can now only walk with help but he keeps campaigning, even from his wheelchair. In June, he went to parliament to urge lawmakers to propose a law compensating Korean war criminals and their families.
“I was lucky to live until 95. I don’t want to live longer for myself but I can’t stop fighting for my dead comrades,” he said.
TOKYO: To the casual observer, 95-year-old Lee Hak-rae could be just another elderly person in Japan.
Surrounded by pictures of his family and paintings by his great-grandchildren, Lee potters about his cluttered living room on the outskirts of Tokyo.
But Lee is obsessed by brutal events of 75 years ago that have defined his life: his recruitment into the Japanese army from then-occupied Korea in 1942; his role in building the Thai-Burma railway; being designated a World War Two criminal; and how, he says, he was tossed into the dustbin of history by both Japan and South Korea.
Since recovering its sovereignty under the San Francisco Peace Treaty signed in 1951, and reviving military pensions in 1953, Japan has given a pension supplement that can add up to about US$41,000 a year to military veterans.
That includes war criminals and their families, government officials say.
Japanese wartime leaders convicted of war crimes by an Allied tribunal are honoured at Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine.
The treaty also meant Koreans who fought for Japan lost their Japanese nationality, and with it, entitlement to such assistance.
More importantly for Lee, the men have never been afforded the attention and a sense of closure given to their Japanese counterparts.
“Listen to me. Why are they treating us differently?” says Lee, switching in a barely audible voice between Korean and Japanese.
“It’s unfair and doesn’t make any sense. How can I accept this unbelievable situation?” Lee said as he clutched dog-eared clippings documenting his years of campaigning for recognition and compensation.
Lee was among 148 Korean war criminals convicted after the war.
Now he is the last survivor.
Twenty-three of them were executed and he too was sentenced to death by hanging as Kakurai Hiromura in 1947.
His sentence was commuted on appeal to 20 years.
He was released on parole from a Tokyo prison in 1956.
About 240,000 Korean men took part in the war on the Japanese side.
After the war, the Allied governments rounding up suspected war criminals treated men of Korean ethnicity as Japanese.
But the men were rejected by both Korea and Japan, historians say.
“The Koreans convicted of war crimes had a terrible time after the war because they were regarded as collaborators by other Koreans, but they weren’t recognised by the Japanese government as veterans,” said Robert Cribb, history professor at Australian National University.
Cribb said it was unfair the Japan gave pensions to their war criminals but not to Koreans who were part of the Japanese army.
The Lizard
In 1943, Lee oversaw about 500 Allied prisoners of war (POW) building what later became known as the Death Railway between Thailand and Myanmar.
About 12,000 POWs died from overwork, beatings and exhaustion during the construction of the 415km line.
The conditions were made famous in the 1957 film “The Bridge on the River Kwai”.
Trial records reviewed by Reuters show prisoners remembered Lee, known as the Lizard, as one of the most brutal guards on the railway.
Austen Fyfe, an Australian POW, said Lee was notorious for his brutality and beat him repeatedly, including with a bamboo stick on the back of the head.
Other prisoners said Lee would stalk their makeshift hospital and “beat up the people he thought to be well enough to work”.
Lee told the court he had “pushed them slightly near the shoulder” but denied charges of brutality, records show.
Lee said Koreans were on the lowest rung of the Japanese military hierarchy and merely took orders.
After his release, Lee started a taxi company with other Korean war criminals.
Afraid of being labelled a traitor back home, he felt he could not return, even missing his mother’s funeral.
“Except my parents and siblings, no one would welcome me,” he said.
In 1999, Japan’s Supreme Court rejected compensation claims by Lee and other Korean war criminals.
In 2006, South Korea recognised them as victims of Japanese imperialism but offered no compensation to those living in Japan.
Those in Korea gained the right to subsidised healthcare.
Lee can now only walk with help but he keeps campaigning, even from his wheelchair. In June, he went to parliament to urge lawmakers to propose a law compensating Korean war criminals and their families.
“I was lucky to live until 95. I don’t want to live longer for myself but I can’t stop fighting for my dead comrades,” he said.
The beautiful Kanchanaburi War Cemetery has more than 6,000 graves of Australian, British and Dutch POWs. Thousands more who died working on the Burma Railroad, including Malayans, their bodies were dumped by the wayside, to simply rot away.
ReplyDeleteMr Lee has reached the age of 95. He should consider himself lucky that the British or Australians never had a "Mossad" like Israel, who hunted down Nazis after WW2 to bring them to justice for war crimes, usually this meant life sentence or death penalty.
There were Taiwanese too, who did the dirty works of the Japanese invasion forces in SEA.
ReplyDeleteThey were the imitated Jap acting more Japanese than the real Jap! Many of the inhumane atrocities done in SEA were committed by these Jap wannabes.
岩里政男, The ex president of Taiwan who kaput recently, has a brother enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社) for his war time 'service' to the emeoro Hito.
ccp mao thank japan for invading china.
DeleteThese wannabes invariably have to go the extra mile to show they are 'one of them'. Our local ones are no different...must be more Malay than the Malays. As for the Pisang ( Bananas ), must be more Angmos than the Angmos, even to the extent of swallowing their their shits and vomit without a whimper, hehehe
Delete"岩里政男, The ex president of Taiwan who kaput recently, has a brother enshrined in the Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社) for his war time 'service' to the emeoro Hito".....interesting piece. Tx, CK
犬养 mfer,
Delete"ccp mao thank japan for invading china."
???
Or so dickheads like u, can fabricate outrageous reason for the 'independence' of that farted Formosa!
"(Japan) doesn't have to say sorry, you had contributed towards China, why? Because had Imperial Japan did not start the war of invasion, how could we communist became mighty powerful? How could we stage the coup d'état? How could we defeat Chiang Kai Shek? How are we going to pay back you guys? No, we do not want your war reparations!"
Delete犬养 mfer, very panda by half!
DeleteWhy don't u put this Mao saying in its full context instead of c&p the portion that suit yr intended fart?
Why not the original Chinese text?
Afraid of those who can dissect/understand full text to knock yr 断章取义 fart?
Scare of people seeing yr 南魔萬 England on display?
U r just one step ahead of yr 台毒 morons' headliner gimmick!
But still the same dickheads that fed on shit to fabricate lies.
what context? u need a translator if u cant read simple english.
DeleteContext?
DeleteYr daughter has left u.
Vis-a-vis
U accused yr daughter has left u.
犬养 mfer, that's contextual infos in a complete sentence. Besides, I have also left out those unspoken circumstances that lead to such confrontational statements.
Is this England simple enough for u to understand?
so tell us the context, einstein, thank or no thank?
DeleteToo bad, this context example IS outside yr level of 南魔萬 England comprehension!
DeleteThen, do keep in mind my rebuttal isn't for u, who r too far gone & done with.
Sleep on it!