Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution and Forced Labor:
Korea-Japan NGO Guidebook

The Center for Historical Truth and Justice, Republic of Korea
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Network for Fact Finding on Wartime Mobilization and Forced Labor, Japan

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Contents
Introduction
1. 	Composition and Characteristics of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji
Industrial Revolution’

2

5
6
9

1-1 Composition of the Sites on the World Heritage List
1-2 Characteristics and problems of the nominated Sites
1-3 Current situation of the explanation of the industrial heritage facilities in the Kyushu Area

13

2. 	The History of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ –Wars of Aggression, Colonization and Forced Labor

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2-1 The modernization of Japan in the Meiji period and the aggressive wars in Asia
2-2 The reality of forced mobilization of Koreans during the colonial
period2-3 Forced labor of Chinese and Allied prisoners of war in the AsiaPacific War period

3. Sites of Forced Labor - Steel Works, Shipyard, Coal Mines
3-1 Yawata Steel Works: Built with the war reparations of the First SinoJapanese war (1894-1895)
3-2 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Nagasaki Shipyard: From torpedoes and warships to the Atomic bombing
3-3 Takashima and Hashima Coal Mine: Hell Island, a symbol of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s tyranny
3-4. M iike Coal Mine: The growth of Mitsui Group with forced labor

4. The History of Forced Labor and World Heritage Sites
4-1 Forced labor at World Heritage sites
4-2 The unresolved issue of post-war compensation: Human rights
of forced labor victims
4-3 Memories of the forced mobilization and activities to ensure that
it is not forgotten

Appendix: Korea-Japan Joint NGO Statement of 5 July, 2017

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26
31
32
44
55
68
79
80
83
86
90

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Introduction
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, at the 39th session held on July 5, 2015

labor to reveal the truth of their sufferings and fight for reparations for them, believe

in Bonn, Germany, made a decision to inscribe the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrialthat the explanation on the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ should include

Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining’ on the World Heritage List.

‘the dark history’ of the sites such as forced labor which is uncomfortable, yet must

The nomination of the Sites as a UNESCO World Heritage means that the Heritage

not to be evaded. Victims of Japan’s colonial rule and wars of aggression are still call-has been recognized as a common heritage of humanity with 'Outstanding Universal

ing for justice. Even if more than 70 years have passed since the end of the Second

Value'. The designated heritage is not the exclusive property of a state or nation, but

World War, the sufferings of forced mobilization and forced labor still have not beena heritage to be valued and protected by all human beings and to be transmitted toresolved. Truth-finding of the dark history, apologies, reparations, commemoration

present and future generations.

and remembrance for the victims should still be followed through at the same time.

The NGOs in both Korean and Japan have been critical of the decision and demanded that the sites should also reveal the dark history to be remembered, such as

These are both the reasons why we are critical of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution’ and the purpose of this guidebook.

Japanese wars of aggression, colonization, forced mobilization and forced labor. The

In this book, we will check what kind of industrial facilities are bound together underquestion is whether the principles and values of the UNESCO World Heritage Conven-

the name of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ and what are the problems

tion are embodied at the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’.

of the composition of this heritage. While listening to the hidden history of each industrial

In nominating the 'Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, the World Heritage

facility, which had also been the site of forced labor, and the testimonies of its victims,

Committee recommended particularly that the Japanese government should prepare

we will also examine why the issue of forced labor in the World Heritage should be

an interpretive strategy for the presentation of the Sites which allows an understand-highlighted. By showing the history of industrialization, war, state violence and humaning of the ‘full history’ of each site. In response, Mrs. Kuni Sato, Ambassador of therights abuses all connected with these sites, we hope that this guidebook will provide

Japanese Delegation stated that “Japan is prepared to take measures that allow anmaterial to reflect on for the future.

understanding that there were a large number of Koreans and others who were brought

As the saying goes that “the opposite of forgetting is not memory, but justice”, our callagainst their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of

to remember the history of forced labor at the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolu-

the sites, and that, during World War II, the Government of Japan also implemented its

tion’ is an appeal for justice. We would like to emphasize that this industrial heritage

policy of requisition.” The Ambassador also said that “Japan is prepared to incorporate

should not be treated as a war booty on the part of the victor, and that the memory

appropriate measures into the interpretive strategy to remember the victims such asof the powerful is not the only one to be remembered nor imposed. This guidebook

the establishment of information center.”contains our hope that the spirit of UNESCO should be realized here and now.

Therefore, the Japanese government must show the full history of the industrial facilities and is scheduled to report on progress with the recommendations to UNESCO
by December 1, 2017. However, considering the attitude taken by the Japanese government so far, it is highly doubtful whether the Japanese government will faithfully
implement the recommendations of the World Heritage Committee.
We, the citizens of Korea and Japan who have worked with the victims of forced

2

The Center for Historical Truth and Justice.
Network for Fact Finding on Wartime Mobilization and Forced Labor

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1
Composition and Characteristicsof the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’5Distribution Map of ‘Sites of Japan’s
Meiji Industrial Revolution’Nagasaki
Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard
Kosuge Slip Dock(1869)

KamaishiNo.3 Dry Dock, (1905)

Hashino Iron Mining and Smelting Site(1858)

Giant Cantilever Crane(1909)
Former Pattern Shop(1898)
Senshokaku Guest House(1904)
Takashima Coal Mine(1869)

Hagi

Hashima Coal Mine(1890)

Hagi Reverberatory Furnace(1856)

Glover House and Office(1863)

Ebisugahana Shipyard(1856)
Ohitayama Tatara Iron Works(1855)
Hagi Castle Town(17-19c)
Shokasonjuku Academy(1856)

Saga
GUNMA

Mietsu Naval Dock(1858)

Nirayama

TOKYO

Nirayama Reverberatory Furnace(1857)

OSAKA

YawataMiike
Kagoshima
Shuseikan(1851)
Foreign Engineers’ Residence(1867)
Former Machinery Factory at Shuseikan(1865)
Remains of Shuseikan Reverberatory Furnace(1857)
Terayama Charcoal Kiln(1858)

The Imperial Steel Works, Japan(1901)
First Head Office(1899)

Miike Coal Mine and Miike Port
Miyanohara Pit(1898)

Repair Shop(1900)

Manda Pit(1902)

Onga River Pumping Station(1910)

Former Forge Shop(1900)

Miike Coal Railway(1905)
Miike Port(1908)
Misumi West Port(1887)

Sekiyoshi Sluice Gate of Yoshino Leat(1852)

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1-1 Composition of the Sites on the World Heritage List

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The ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal
Mining’ is a group of facilities relating to the industrial revolution dating from the end of
the Edo period (1850s) to the late Meiji period (1910), which are concentrated mostly in
the Kyushu and Yamaguchi areas.
The ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ is grouped together with twenty threesites, scattered over eight prefectures (administrative districts). The industrial heritage
facilities in the Kyushu and Yamaguchi regions are spread out over the five of these
prefectures, as shown below.
• Hagi (Choshu Domain), Yamaguchi Prefecture: Hagi Reverberatory Furnace (a smelting furnace used in the casting of iron cannons), Ebisugahana Shipyard, Ohitayama Tatara
Iron Works (iron material for ship parts), Hagi Castle Town, and Shoukasonjuku Academy.
• Kagoshima Prefecture (Satsuma Domain): Shuseikan (warship building and cannon
manufacture), the ruins of the Terayama Charcoal Kiln (charcoal fuel), and Sekiyoshi
Sluice Gate of Yoshino Leat (waterpower supply). The Shuseikan facilities include theShuseikan Reverberatory Furnace, Shuseikan Machinery Factory, and Kagoshima Cotton
Mill Foreign Engineers’ Residence. The Terayama Charcoal Kiln and Sekiyoshi Sluice
Gate were included by Japan in the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ as earlyindustrial heritages of the late Edo period.
• Nagasaki Prefecture: Nagasaki Shipyard and the Takashima Coal Mine. The shipyard
comprises 5 facilities: Kosuge Slip Dock, Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Dock, Mitsubishi Giant
Cantilever Crane, Mitsubishi Former Pattern Shop, and Mitsubishi Senshokaku Guest
House. There are two coalmines offshore from Nagasaki: Takashima Coal Mine andHashima Coal Mine. Also included is Glover House and Office which was involved with
the Takashima Coal Mine development.
• Fukuoka and Kumamoto Prefectures: Miike Coal Mine and Port and Misumi West Port.
Miike Coal Mine includes Miyanohara Pit, Manda Pit, and the Miike Coal Railway.
• Fukuoka Prefecture: the Yawata Steel Works and Onga River Pumping Station (delivery of industrial water to Yawata). The Yawata Steel Works facilities also include Yawata
Steel Works First Head Office, Yawata Steel Works Repair Shop and Yawata Steel Works
Former Forge Shop.
• In addition to the sites above, three further sites, in other prefectures, were added
as the World Heritage Site: Nirayama Reverberatory Furnace in Shizuoka Prefecture,
Hashino Iron Mining and Smelting Site in Kamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture, and Mietsu
Naval Dock in Saga Prefecture.
Among the various sites, Yawata Steel Works and Miike Coal Mine in Fukuoka Prefecture, and Nagasaki Shipyard and Takashima Coal Mine (encompassing the Takashima
and Hashima Coal Mines) in Nagasaki Prefecture show the industrialization of steel,shipbuilding and coal in the Meiji period.

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1-2 Characteristics and problems ofthe nominated Sites
The nomination process: making changes and the initiative of
the Prime Minister
The Japanese government's preparation for the nomination of the ‘Sites of Japan’s
Meiji Industrial Revolution’ dated back to 1999. Initially, the Japanese government promoted the nomination under the title of ‘Industrial Heritage of Modernization’, but inJanuary, 2014, they changed the name to the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution- Kyushu·Yamaguchi Area’. Japan also changed its Law for the Protection of Cultural
Properties to overcome the difficulty that many facilities to be inscribed on the World
Heritage List were in operation(still so currently).
The preparatory works for the World Heritage listing had previously been conductedby the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs in cooperation with the relevant local authorities. In relation to the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, however, notably
the Japanese Prime Minister took the initiative. The new title of the application for thenomination, ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ was given at this time, especiallyas the issues of war responsibility and forced labor were raised in connection with thenomination campaign.

Myth of Success of the Industrial Revolution in a 'bright Meiji'
The ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution' as inscribed on the UNESCO World
Heritage List aims to present a narrative of a successful industrialization by connecting
the industrializing efforts in Choshu and Satsuma domains with iron and coal production
and shipbuilding at Yawata Steel Works, Nagasaki Shipyard, Takashima Coal Mine, Miike
Coal Mine and other facilities. The narrative of the Sites is nothing but a eulogy to Japan's
industrial development written solely from the point of view of technological innovation andthe accumulation of capital. It falls far short of perspectives to view the history holisticallyin the context of such issues of laborers,
wars and colonial rules, not to mention
human rights and international relations
implications.
Calling it an industrial revolution, theattitude that emphasizes only the ‘capital’ aspect of technology and facilities
while ignoring the labor put into theindustrial field can also be observed

Tomioka Silk Mill (Photo of August 2107)

9

in the case of the Tomioka Silk Mill and Related Sites in Gunma Prefecture, which wereregistered as World Heritage in 2014. The Japanese government explained these Sites
as having the requisite universal value to be a World Heritage on the basis that the millintroduced western technology to improve the technology of sericulture and silk milling inJapan, contributing to the development of the world silk industry and the popularizationof its consumption. However, they did not explain the conditions of the silk mill workers,
the widening disparity between the rich and the poor caused by industrialization, theintroduction of Japanese capital into Korea or the military production during the war
period. While merely praising the industrialization of the Meiji period, the nominated sitesof World Heritage are utilized as a means for tourist attractions.
The official story of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ emphasizes thatthe industrialization that took place at the end of the Edo period and in the Meiji period
prevented Japan from being colonized. However, the industrialization of coal, steel, andshipbuilding in Japan made progress with, if it is not the direct result from, the various wars
Imperial Japan had conducted, such as the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese
War and the First World War. It was accompanied by a series of aggression, occupationand colonial domination of Korea, China and Taiwan. It is not surprising that the expansion of its industries led to yet further aggressive wars.
The slogans of the Meiji period such as “Shukusan-kogyo”(promotion of industry) and“Fukoku-kyohei” (rich country, strong army) show that the composite facilities of the Sites
of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution had a strong military character from the beginning.
Moreover, its major industrial facilities were the historical places where Koreans, Chineseand Allied prisoners of war had been encamped to work as forced laborers during theSecond World War.

1

Entrance and the inside, Mikawa Pit of Miike Coal Mine (Photo of September 2017)10‘Meiji Japan’: Edited deliberately to conceal history
The unbalanced view of history produced another abnormality in the periodization ofthe ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’. As the Japanese government set thetime limit to the year 1910, most of the remaining modern industrial facilities came to beparadoxically excluded from the nomination process of World Heritage sites. Historicallyspeaking the Meiji period began from 1868 when the Meiji Restoration overturned the
Shogun system and installed a new government, ending in 1912 with the death of Emperor
Meiji. It is not clear why the Japanese government set the period of the Sites to 1850-1910.
The Kawachi Reservoir at Yawata Steel Works which was completed in 1927, was notincluded, although it is held to be an indispensable industrial heritage. Also excluded
was the Mikawa Pit of Miike Coal Mine, widely known as the site of a terrible coal dust
explosion in 1963, as it began operation in 1939. All the coalfields of the Chikuho area
were also excluded. 150,000 Koreans had been used as forced laborers in these coalfields. The state-owned Yawata Steel Works operated the Nittetsu Futase Coal Mine in
the Chikuho area. In terms of its time period and its significance, the Futase Coal Mineshould have been included in the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’. Thereappears no apparent reason for its exclusion. Nor the fact that 64 people died in a fireat the Futase Coal Mine in 1903.

Newspaper articles critical of the Abe statement of 14 August 2015 on the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.

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Back to the ‘State capable of waging war’1

The statement of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the 70th anniversaryof the end of World War II in 2015, reflects the historical perception of the revisionist. In
the statement, Prime Minister Abe made no mention of the colonial rule of Korea andconsidered the Russo-Japanese War as giving “encouragement to many people undercolonial rule from Asia to Africa”. While he stated that Japan took the wrong course after“the Manchurian Incident”, he made neither apology nor repentance for the past in his
own words, merely recapitulating the remarks of the former governments.
Moreover, no reference was made to reparations to the victims of the past. Although
Prime Minister Abe said that the Chinese “underwent all the sufferings of the war”, he
did not make it specific that Japan was responsible for these sufferings. There was noconcrete acknowledgement of wrongdoings of Japan against Asia. On the other hand,with respect to the “former POWs of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and other nations”, he expressed his gratitude for their “manifestationof tolerance”. He insisted that “We must not let our children, grandchildren, and evenfurther generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined toapologize.” Calling prosperity as “the very foundation of peace”, he suggested to make“Proactive Contribution to Peace”.
However, this kind of conception of peace is none other than the neologism to express
the willingness to strengthen the US-Japan military alliance and to revise the Peace
Clause in the Japanese constitution. The historical perception which tries to memorize
its proud part with no repentance, is closely connected with the project to make Japan
once again a country capable of waging war. The story told in the nomination of the ‘Sites
of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ can also be seen as part of this. In this context,
what is happening in relation to the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ can bebetter understood.

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1-3 Current situation of the explanation of
the industrial heritage facilities in the Kyushu Area
Is the UNESCO Recommendation being implemented?
One of the recommendations in the decision of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee
in 2015, which had been accepted by the Japanese government, required the Japanese
government prepare an interpretative strategy which will allow “an understanding of thefull history of each site” of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’. It is doubtful
whether the Japanese government or local authorities are faithfully implementing therecommendation.
The on-site investigation carried out 1-5 September, 2017, shows that most of thesignboards and materials introducing the industrial heritage facilities in the Kyushu
area, are full of dry and dull explanations consisting mainly of mere chronologies. For
example, the signboard of the Yawata Steel Works First Head Office, as shown in thephotograph below, is written in both Japanese and English. However, the two versions
are different in content.
Translation of the Japanese version:“The state-owned Yawata Steel Works
is one of the constituent properties ofthe ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution’ inscribed on the World
Heritage List. In the middle of the nineteenth century, a country in the East,
which had hitherto closed its doors to
the West, embraced the wave of theIndustrial Revolution of the West andlaid the foundation for the entry into industrialized countries. The ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ testify
the industrialization within a half-century
that changed Japan's heavy industries(steel, shipbuilding, coal industry) as
well as the quality of the country fromthe 1850s to 1910s.”
English version: “One of a series ofproperties that form a World Heritage

Signboards installed at Yawata Steel Works First
Head Office and Onga River Pumping Station as of
1 September 201713

Site that reflects the rapid industrialization of Japan from the 1850s to 1910, foundedprimarily on iron and steel, shipbuilding and coal mining. This successful industrialization was achieved in just a little over 50 years without colonization, and on Japan’s
own terms.”

1

The explanations of the sites as they stand today, are nothing more than half-truths
without the story of the laborers who sustained the basis of the industrial developmentof modern Japan, focusing solely on machinery and equipment. There is no history
about Japanese workers, women, children, and prison laborers, still less the history of
resistance that declared their humanity through solidarity and unity. Also missing is thehistory of Koreans, Chinese, and Allied prisoners of war who were forcibly deported andput to forced labor regardless of their will.
The pamphlet on Hashima made by Nagasaki City is also the same case (as of
September 2017). The pamphlet written by the Nagasaki City Tourism Promotion Department transmits only one side of the truth, telling merely that the consciousness ofcrisis stemming from “foreign
threats” led to the receptionof western knowledge andtechnology resulting in theJapanese modernization.
This consciousness, however, changed immediately intothat of expansionism which
led to the aggression andthe colonization of neighboring countries such as Taiwan
and Korea. For the “full history”, it is essential to explainthat these World Heritage
industrial facilities supported
also the war economy.
The “New Nagasaki City
History” Volume 3 (Modern
period part, 2014) points outthat the Takashima Coal Mineis a venue of social educationthat represents the “history ofhardships” and the “negative
heritage” in Japanese modPamphlets made Nagasaki City relating to the modernization heritageern history. It makes clear thatand Hashima island (September, 2017)14

many people had been deceived and enticed into the coalmines since the Meiji Period
and forced them to work under brutal conditions with high casualties. It also reveals
that the people deported from the Korean peninsula and China underwent similar experiences in the wartime period. In particular, the testimonies of Chinese and Koreans
who had been forcibly mobilized, are provided. Likewise, when explaining the ‘Sites ofJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, are not the “history of hardships” and the “negative
heritage” to be told?

Explanation full of the glorification of history
The way of explanation excluding completely the dark side of the sites’ history can be
confirmed repeatedly in the commentaries given by local guides at these sites. Naturally most guides provide information based on their wide knowledge of the industrial
heritage, but when it comes to the questions of war and forced labor, they do not give a
direct answer, saying evasively
that they do not know anything
about it.
The Japanese version of
the pamphlet on the History of
Miike Coal Mine and Manda
Coal Mine issued by Arao City,
Kumamoto (September, 2017)
reads that “Korean people under the Japanese rule, Chinese,and Allied prisoners of war wereforced to work.” In the foreign
language version, however, regretfully there is no explanation
on forced labor. As to the question of whether there were Korean laborers at the coal mine,
the local guide told that “it is set
to give no mention”, let alone an
explanation.
It will be hard to deny the suspicion that there is either a cartelof silence or invisible control overthe explanations to be given in
relation to the issue of forced laPamphlets made by Arao City15

bor. Currently, there is no explanation of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’that concurs with the spirit of UNESCO. There are found only the commercialization of
the World Heritage sites as tourist attractions and the praise of glorious history. Then,
what and how it should include are the questions to look closely in the next Chapter.

1

2

The History of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji
Industrial Revolution’ – Wars of Aggression, Colonization and Forced Labor

Triumphant march in the streets of Nanam, Korea(“Collection of Photographs in Memory of the
expedifion during the Manchurion lncident”)

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2-1 The modernization of Japan in the Meiji period
and the aggressive wars in Asia
Wage of aggressive wars and the beginning of modernization
Japan was the first country in East Asia to achieve the Western-style modernization.
Under the Meiji Restoration in Japan, a modern reform of the country’s political structure
to form a new centralized state was promoted in the place of the Shogunate or the ‘han’(domain) system. In the process of industrialization, the Meiji government took hold of
the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, and Korea.
The industrial revolution in Japan accompanied the First Sino-Japanese War and the
Russo-Japanese War. With the money for war reparations from the Qing Dynasty following
the Fist Sino-Japanese War, Japan established thegold standard system and constructed the Yawata
Steel Works, among others. Evidently, the ‘Sites ofJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, dating from the1850s to 1910, indicate not only the industrialization,
but also the beginning of Japan’s successive aggressions.

 he cradle of “Seikanron” is now a World
T
Heritage site
The Shokasonjuku Academy, one of the 23 properties included in the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution’, is a private school opened by Yoshida
Shoin. Yoshida Shoin argued for Japan’s military
expansion and foreign aggression. His ideas influenced the Meiji government in favorof the “Seikanron”, the doctrine of theconquest of Korea. Its advocacy ofaggression against neighboring countries was realized in the Ganghwa Island Incident, the First Sino-JapaneseWar, the Russo-Japanese War, andthe forced occupation of Korea.
Yoshida Shoin’s ideas were put

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Postcard commemorating the forced annexation of Korea by Japan

Gyeongbokgung Palace with the Japanese flag

Portrait of Yoshida Shoin

Shokasonjuku Academy

into practice by Ito Hirobumi and Yamagata Aritomo. Ito Hirobumi was themastermind of the invasion of Asiaof the Japanese imperialism and thecolonization of Korea. He was instrumental in making Korea a Japanese“protectorate” with the imposition of
the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905 (the“Eulsa” Treaty), himself becoming thefirst Resident-General of Korea. Whenthe Emperor of the Korean Empire, Gojong, dispatched special emissaries to
the Second Peace Conference at The
Hague in 1907, with the intent to makepublic the illegality of the protectorate,
Ito forced Emperor Gojong to dethrone
and disbanded the Korean army.
These events caused the strugglesof the people organized as the Righteous Soldiers to become widespreadin the whole country. Ito instructed
Postcard commemorating the forced annexation of Korea
by Japan: (from the right) Ito Hirobumi, the first Residenttheir forcible suppression which was
General of Korea; Terauchi Masatake, the third Residentconducted by Hasegawa Yoshimichi,
General; Sone Arasuke, the second Resident-General
the commander of the Japanese Army
garrisoned in Korea. According to the Japanese government’s records on the struggleof the Righteous Army, at least 140,000 people participated in the struggle and morethan 17,000 people were put to death between 1907 and 1910. Hasegawa was a militaryman belonging to the clan of Yamagata Aritomo who laid the foundation of the JapaneseImperial Army. Hasegawa later became the second Governor-General of Korea succeeding Terauchi Masatake, and suppressed the March 1st independence movement that19

arose in Korea in 1919.
The inclusion of Shokasonjuku Academy in the ‘Sites ofJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ shows that the government of Japan evaluates it
as an institution of cultivating
persons who pursued the industrialization. However, Shokasonjuku Academy is not an
industrial facility, but the place
where was made the view ofhistory that justifies the ideolShokasonjuku Academy with the placard celebrating the World Heriogy and the history of Japan’s
tage registration (Photo of March 2016)
invasion of Asia. The inclusionof the Academy of Yoshida Shoin, who advocated Japan’s external expansionism, indicates that there is neither reflection on Japan’s past wars nor awareness of the areas
subjected to the aggression. Such attitudes are criticized as both an insult and a deception to the neighboring countries. There have been attempts in Japan to revise the Peace
Constitution to enable the use of military force overseas. This kind of moves lies behindthe exaltation of Shokasonjuku Academy and Yoshida Shoin.

2

The wounds left by a ‘negative heritage’ cannot be easily erased or healed. And this is
why it should be constantly remembered.
On the basis of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO has also designated andpreserved humanity’s ‘negative heritage’ as World Heritage. The most notable examples
are Auschwitz Birkenau in Poland, a German Nazi concentration and extermination campwhere Jews and others were brutally killed; the island of Gorée in Senegal, which was
the largest slave-trading center on the African coast; and the Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test
Site, where 67 nuclear tests were carried out. These have been nominated as World
Heritage for present and future generations to reflect on the dark aspects of the pastand to resolve not to repeat the same mistakes‘Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ as conceived by the Japanese government is anattempt to forget and hide the history that must be remembered – a history not solelyof entrepreneurs and technicians, but also the blood and sweat of numerous laborers,
as well as successive wars of aggression, colonial domination and the forced labor of
Koreans, Chinese and Allied prisoners of war. It will be only when its ‘negative history’ isproperly explained while remembering the victims and learning its lessons, that the universal value of the Sites as a
genuine World Heritage canbe shared with the world.

‘Negative heritage’ and UNESCO spirit
UNESCO was created in order to reflect on the two World Wars and their accompanying calamities undergone by the humanity, and not to repeat them. UNESCO is aninternational organization that aims to construct the defences of peace in the minds ofhuman beings, to diffuse culture for the dignity of man, to pursue education for justiceand liberty and peace, to strengthen the intellectual and moral solidarity between thepeoples and consequently to realize international peace and the common welfare ofhumankind (the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), adopted in 1945).
The “Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural
Heritage”(the World Heritage Convention), adopted by the 17th UNESCO General Conference in 1972, sets out the standards for the common heritage of humankind andprinciples for its protection.
While UNESCO World Heritage sites are mostly of beautiful and positive values, there
are heritages symbolizing such tragedies that should never be repeated by the humankind. These are called ‘negative heritage’ destined to serve as an example not to follow.
20

Auschwitz Birkenau camp and its
exhibition room21

2-2 The reality of forced mobilization of Koreans
during the colonial period
Mobilize them all!
Among the facilities registered as the ‘Sites ofJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, those suchas Yawata Steel Works, Mitsui Miike Coal Mine,
Mitsubishi Takashima Coal Mine (Takashima
and Hashima), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Ltd.’s Nagasaki Shipyard, and Kamaishi Coal
Mine and Iron Works were also the sites offorced mobilization and forced labor of Koreans.
Following the invasion of Manchuria in 1931,
Japan waged a total war of aggression against
China in 1937. Japan established ‘labor mobilization plans’ covering a wide range of areas
including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Sakhalin, andthe South Sea Islands in the Pacific. In colonial
Korea, Japan strengthened the system for themobilization of human and material resources,
Oath of the Imperial Subject
while pursuing the policy of ‘making subjects ofthe emperor’, an assimilation of Koreans into Japanese.
Over 800,000 workers Korean had been deported to Japan. The Korean Women’s
Volunteer Labour Corps were one of the pretext for sending young girls as factory workers.
More than 360,000 people were mobilized to serve the Japanese army as soldiers andcivilians attached to themilitary. Some women
had been turned into
‘comfort women’ for theJapanese army. Within
Korea itself, more than
6 million Koreans werealso forcibly mobilized
to work.

Postcard promoting military conscription

22

Photographs of forced mobilization of Koreans (“Fighting Korea” issued in June 1945)

Forced labor, with routine surveillance and violence
The labor mobilization that took place in 1939 had been planned and carried out by
the Japanese State and Japanese businesses in an organized and systematic manner tomake up for the shortage of labor. Bymeans such as enticement, deception and violence, Japan forcibly had
drafted people in Korea. They had
been deported to coalfields, mines,
construction sites, and munitions factories in various parts of Japan. The
mobilized people had been subjected
to violent surveillance without liberties
and proper wages.
They were put to work under theharsh and abject conditions of workand subjected to severe racial discrimination. They suffered from malnutrition and starvation, and evenwhen their mobilization period expired, they were often not allowed
to return home. The family members
who had been left behind had to undergo dire poverty without any source
Report by a contractee of the Home Ministry, sent to theof income to sustain their lives. Someadministrative bureau, the Home Ministry(31 July, 1944)of the records at the time describedstated that the reality of mobilization was “the condition
similar to kidnapping” and that “as all sort of methods suchthe situation of such mobilization as
as night raids and allurements were employed, there are“spoliation akin to hostage taking” andincreasing the cases of “spoliation akin to hostage taking”
and “kidnapping”.
“kidnapping”.
23The companies relating to the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ and the estimates of Koreans, Chinese and Allied Forces prisoners of war mobilized for forced labor
Companies that used
forced labor

2

Korean forcedlaborers

Chinese forcedlaborers

Allied POWs

Yawata Steel Works
Yawata Harbor
Nittetsu Futase Coal Mine

4,000
4,000
4,000

201
—
805

1,353

Nagasaki Shipyard

6,000

—

500

Takashima Coal Mine
(Takashima & Hashima)

4,000

409

—

Miike Coal Mine

9,264

2,481

1,875

Kamaishi Iron Works
Kamaishi Coal Mine

1,000
1,263

288

410
401

Total

33,400

4,184

5,140

601

Note: As Yawata Harbor and Nittetsu Futase Coal Mine were closely related with the Yawata SteelWorks, the numbers of forced laborers at those sites have been included. The number of forcedlaborers at the Miike Coal Mine also includes those forced to work at Miyaura Pit and Otsuyama Pit.

In the case of the facilities included in the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’,
it is estimated that approximately 33,400 Koreans were subjected to damages incurredfrom forced labor.
If only the known cases of death are taken, they were about 50 people at the Mitsubishi Takashima Coal Mine’s Hashima Pit, about 50 at Miike Coal Mine, and about
60 at Nagasaki Shipyard. In the case of the Takashima Coal Mine’s Takashima Pit andthe Yawata Steel Works, only a small number has been identified so far. It has not beenpossible to know the exact number and the aftermath of the Koreans who had to sufferfrom the atomic bombing in Nagasaki.

Violation of the Forced Labour Convention
The issue of forced labor of colonial Koreans at the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution’ is not a problem only for UNESCO. Already in 1999 in the International
Labour Organization(ILO), the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions
and Recommendations held that “the massive conscription of labour to work for private
industry in Japan under such deplorable conditions was a violation” of the Forced
Labour Convention. From then on, the Committee has continued to recommend that
the Japanese government take action to resolve the problem. However, the Japanese
government remains to be silent.
Instead, the Japanese government took the course for the nomination as World Heritage

24of those industrial facilities of Mitsui Group, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon
Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation that have been criticized in Korea as ‘companies
involved in war crimes’. It does not acknowledge that there had been forced labor atthese sites. The Japanese government should give recognition to the history of forcedlabor and make clear the negative heritage of wars of aggression and the accompanying forced labor.

No forced mobilization or forced labor?
When the decision of the inscription of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’on the World Heritage List was adopted in July, 2015, the Japanese ambassador to
UNESCO made the following statement:
Japan is prepared to take measures that allow an understanding that there were alarge number of Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced
to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites, and that, during
World War II, the Government of Japan also implemented its policy of requisition.
The underlined part became a source of conflicting translations and interpretations. The
word “others” in this context is taken to referring to Chinese and Allied prisoners of war.
The Japanese ambassador also promised to take appropriate measures to remember
the victims, such as the establishment of information center.
The words used in this statement could be accepted as acknowledging the forced
mobilization and forced labor of Koreans. However, after this statement was made, theJapanese government argued that the expression of “forced to work” “does not necessarily mean forced labor,” and that “The conscription of people from the Korean Peninsula
at the time of the war does not equate to forced labor under international law.” The assertion is that, while there had been the conscription of Koreans against their will, it cannot
be said to be illegal forced labor. The Japanese government’s argument that Korean
people were made to work but there was no forced labor, and that the conscription was
not criminal but lawful, is an attempt to rewrite history in its favor.
The Japanese government does not yet reveal the number of Korean forced laborers
and their deaths. Japan and its companies are not fulfilling their responsibility to investigate the truth of how many Koreans were killed and how many were injured. Furthermore,
the issue of the forced mobilization of Koreans and their use as forced labor is also an
issue of the victims’ human rights, as discussed in Chapter 4.

25

2-3 Forced labor of Chinese and Allied prisoners of
war in the Asia-Pacific War period
Chinese forced laborers
As the wars of aggression became prolonged and extended, Japan began to mobilize
Chinese forcibly in addition to Koreans in order to alleviate the labor shortage. After the
war ended, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote a report on the situation concerning the use of Chinese laborers (‘kajin roumusha shuurou jijou chousa houkokusho’) in
March 1946.
According to this report, the Japanese army and the
local organ for labor control, Labor Association for North
China, deported a total of 38,935 Chinese to 135 worksites
across Japan from April 1943 to June 1945. 17.5 percentof the deportees, numbering 6,830, died. The entry forthe cause of death in the death certificates indicated thatsome people died of colitis and gastrointestinal inflammation, but it is believed to have concealed that they diedfrom malnutrition, excessive work and ill-treatment. At thecamps in China, people were also treated harshly and

Cover page (above) and Distribution map of Chinese laborers (below): Administrative Bureau, Foreign Ministry,“Report on the situation concerning the use of Chinese laborers”, March 1946

26

many were killed in transportation.
Japan did not treat the Chinese as prisoners of war and deported them in the guiseof contracts making use of the form of ‘requisition’ or ‘recruitment’. The struggles of resistance by Chinese deportees were repressed by the police and the military.
To the places that are included in the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’
were sent a total of 3,896 Chinese including 2,481 to Miike Coal Mine, 409 to Mitsubishi
Takashima Coal Mine, 201 to Yawata Port relating to the Yawata Steel Works of the Imperial Steel Works and 805 to Futase Coal Mine. Some 500 Chinese laborers lost theirlives at Miike, 30 at Takashima and Hashima Coal Mines, some 20 at Yawata Port, and
89 at Futase Mine. 288 Chinese were also deported to work at the Kamaishi Mine runby the Imperial Steel Works.

Li Qing Yun, a Chinese taken from Hebei Province
Li joined the Eighth Route Army in 1942 and was surrounded and captured by theJapanese army in November, 1943. The Japanese army was raiding his village, marauding and burning everything in the house. He had been tortured by the Japanese,
losing consciousness several times. He was transferred from a prison to a concentration
camp, from where he was eventually shipped to Hashima Island. On the island, Li wasencamped in a shabby wooden house with some forty to fifty people sharing a single
room. He worked 12-hour shifts without a day off.
Inside the mine, Li and others were forced to work wearing nothing but a loincloth, orsometimes completely naked. One day when Li became dizzy causing a delay in the coalloading work, the supervisor hit him on the head from behind with a wooden stick. Even
when sick, he could not get a rest nor medical treatment; contrariwise his food rations werereduced. When a gas leak killed two people, a group of seven laborers refused to work
demanding a negotiation
with the head of the mine.
They were rounded up andbeaten indiscriminately by
the police. The policeman
cut with a knife around thethroat of someone withblood gushed out. Whenthey returned home, they
were not welcomed being
branded as Japanese colFrom the right, Li Qing Yun taken to Hashima Island and Lian Shuang
laborators.
Yin to Takashima (Report on the remembrance monument to the Chinese- The Nagasaki Associavictims of the Atomic Bombing in Urakami prison branch, 2008)27

tion to Protect Human Rights of Koreans in Japan, “Listening to the whispers from theWarship Island”, revised and expanded ed. 2016.

Miike, 113 at Nagasaki, 158 at Yawata and 54 at Futase, 463 in total. Kamaishi Steelworksof the Imperial Steel Works also used Allied prisoners as forced laborers.

Lester Tenney, captured in Bataan, the Philippines2

He became prisoner of war in Bataan, in thePhilippines, in April 1942. After escaping fromthe prisoner-of-war camp and joining the guerillas, he was captured and brought to torture. He
was transferred from Bataan, via Cabanatuan, toOmuta Camp in Manila from which he was sent
to Miike Mine to be put into forced labor. While
working for 12 hours a day, he had been maltreated and beaten occasionally with a shovel
or a pickaxe.
- Lester Tenney, “My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan
Death March,” 2003

Former Chinese laborers calling for the restoration of human dignity before the District Court of Nagasaki (Reporton the remembrance monument to the Chinese victims of the Atomic Bombing in Urakami prison branch, 2008)

Allied prisoners of war as forced laborers
As many as 350,000 Allied Forces prisoners were taken by the Japanese during the
Asia-Pacific war. These included approximately 150,000 prisoners from the US andvarious countries in Europe, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Dueto the harsh treatment, the number of Allied Forces survivors from these countries was
reduced to 111,902 by the end of the war. The death toll amounted to more than 30,000.
Japan sent 36,000 Allied captives for forced labor to 130 concentration camps in
Mainland Japan. According to the Prisoner of War Information Bureau’s report titled“Treatment of Prisoners”, 3,415 prisoners died at the camps. Over 10 thousand weredrowned to death during the transfer when the transport ships were attacked and sunk.
These ships became known as “hell ships.”
Among the facilities of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, 1,875 Allied
prisoners underwent forced labor, being deployed at Miike Coal Mine, some 500 at
Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Shipyard, 1,353 prisoners at the Yawata Steel Works and 601 at
Futase Coal Mine, the sum total being 4,329. The number of death among them is 138 at

28

Lester Tenney (2010)

Paul Daniel, captured in Java, Indonesia
He was captured in Java and sent to work at the airfield construction site in Fukuoka
in December 1943, before being transferred to Miike Coal Mine in December 1944. The
hardest thing for him during that time was the maltreatment.

Friendship Meeting for Better Understanding between former Prisoners of war and their families. The former
American POWs who were taken to Miike Mine of the Mitsui group, participated in an exchange program withcitizens at the invitation of the Japanese government.

29

“A hose was put into my mouth and once my stomach was full of water they would
stand on it. Sometimes, I was told to hold a bucket filled with water above my head, whilekneeling with a rod placed behind my knees. We would work in a team with several of
the Japanese miners and several of us captives. The work was arduous.”2

The conditions of prisoners of war were horrific as told to his family. Even after hecame home, he had to struggle with nightmares. Screams and so much sweat in his
sleep made his wife alarmed.
- Investigation by POW Research Society, testimony of a family member 20173

Sites of Forced Labor - SteelWorks, Shipyard, Coal Mines“Airplanes, warships and bullets, all start from the coal. Take care of coal!”(Rear cover of the Bulletin of the Coal Control Association, Ministry of Munitions,
March 1944)30

31

3-1 Yawata Steel Works: Built with the war reparations of the First Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895)

Korean Peninsula became battlefield of the First Sino-Japanese War
The picture on the right is titled“Fierce Fighting at Anseong Crossingin Korea”, a ‘nishiki-e’, a multi-coloredwoodblock print. It depicts a scenefrom the First Sino-Japanese War. On
29 July, 1894, the Japanese army attempted to cross the Anseong River,located 60 km south of Seoul, to attack Chinese troops in Seonghwan.
Japan started the First Sino-Japanese War to secure control and to eliminate China’s influence over Korea. The Japanesearmy occupied the Korean royal palace and attacked the Donghak peasant army. The
Korean peninsula was the main battleground of this war.

The growth of Yawata Steel Works with wars

Full of Yawata Steel Works (Procure Department of the Steel Works Cooperative, “Collection of Photographs”, 1932)

32

After winning the First Sino-JapaneseWar, Japan received a huge amount of
reparations from China. China paid Japan a war indemnity of 200 million Kuping taels, which was equivalent to 4 times
Japan’s annual national budget at the time.
Japan spent 80% of these reparations on
military expansion, and the remaining 20%
on the construction of the state-owned
Yawata Steel Works, together with railway,
telegraph and telephone services for theenterprise. The reparations were paid inpounds, which provided the basis of thegold standard in Japan.
The Yawata Steel Works began operating
in 1901, and the stabilization of its operation
took 10 years. They led the developmentof Japan’s heavy industry and accounted
for 90% of Japan’s domestic steel production in 1906. Iron ore, the raw material, wasimported from the Daye mine in China. For

Ito Hirobumi and others visiting Yawata Steel Worksduring the construction of furnace (photo of thebillboard at the former First Head Office of Yawata
Steel Works taken in September 2017)33

3

Futase Coal Mine (Procure Department of the Steel Warks Cooperative, “Collection of Photographs”, 1932)

the supply of coal, the Yawata Steel Works bought a coal mine in the Chikuho area
and ran the Futase branch office, the Futase Coal Mine. At this mine, there was a fire
accident in the Uruno Pit in January 1903, resulting in the death of 101 people. The
gas explosion in the colliery’s central shaft of February 1913 took 64 lives.

Quenched Smelter, Struggles of Laborers for Rights
The Yawata Steel Works became the largest iron and steel factory in Asia, but the
lives of its workers were arduous. Laborers had to work twelve hours a day in two shifts,
and wages were low. As the consciousness for democracy and rights had heightenedin many parts of the world since the First World War, the Yawata workers also became
more aware of their rights. In 1919 Kentaro Nishida, employee of the Yawata SteelWorks, called for the 8-hours day and the improvement of labor conditions and working
environment. He submitted petitions, but his demands were not realized. Later he andKenzo Asahara organized a labor union, called the Friend of Labor Society in Japan.
With the two strikes in February 1920, they won the 8 hours day, a wage increase andthe improvement of welfare facilities.
In 1923 at Yawatagu Edamitsu, the Kitakyushu Machine and Ironworks Union was
founded, later becoming the Kyushu Allience of the Japanese Federation of Labor.
In 1928, Kenzo Asahara was elected as a member of the House of Representatives
representing the Democratic Constitutional Party (min-ken-dou). While conducting its
war of aggression against China, the Japanese government oppressed the rising labor
movements.
34

Inside of Yawata Steel Works Repair Shop (postcard, 1935)

Expansion of war, explosive increase of steel production
With the expansion of the war against China, the demand for steel had dramaticallyincreased. In 1934, centering on the Yawata Steel Works, the Japanese government merged the state-owned and privately-owned iron and steel enterprises andestablished the monopolistic Imperial Steel Works. After the Second Sino-Japanese
War broke out in 1937, the Japanese army occupied the Daye mine in China in thenext year which eventually became the property of the Imperial Steel Works. From
the Daye mine, a large amount of iron ore was transported to Yawata. With the steel
products from Yawata, Japan made battleships, torpedoes, war planes and other
war material until its defeat in 1945.
Yawata Steel Works of the Imperial Steel Works used the labor force mobilized
from all over the Empire to cope with the explosively increased demand for steel
products. About 4,000 of thepeople mobilized forcibly fromcolonial Korea were distributed
to Yawata Steel Works, some
4,000 people to Yawata Harbor and 4,000 people to the
Futase Cole Mine, more than
12,000 people in total. There
were also 201 Chinese people
at the Harbor, 805 Chinese and35

3Inside of Onga River Pumping Station (Procurement department of the Steel Cooperative, “Collection of Photographs”, 1932)

600 Allied prisoners at the Mine, and 1,350 Allied prisoners at the Steel Works who
were forced to work.
Following Japan’s defeat, the US Military Government in Japan pursued the policyof breaking up the ‘zaibatsu’, conglomerates. In 1950, the Imperial Steel Works was
divided into four separate companies – Yawata Steel Works, Fuji Steel Works, Harima
Refractories Co., Ltd., and Nittetsu Steamship Co., Ltd. In 1970, Yawata Steel Worksand Fuji Steel Works merged into New Nippon Steel and in 2012 New Nippon Steeland Sumimoto Metal merged to become Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation. Currently, the Yawata Steel Works is affiliated with Nippon Steel & Sumitomo
Metal Corporation.

was built during the final years of the Edo period. It melted down iron ore and produced
pig iron. In 1880, the Japanese government
established the Kamaishi Iron Works, the firstiron works factory in Japan. In 1883, this wasto become the Tanaka Iron Works of Kamaishi
Mine.
After the Second Sino-Japanese War,
forced labor was also used at the Kamaishi
Mine of Nittetsu Mining CO., Ltd., and Kamaishi Iron Works of the Imperial Steel Works.
Kamaishi Iron Works were destroyed with
two naval bombardments by the US in Julyand August 1945. More than 1,000 people
are estimated to have died in the bombardments, including Korean forced laborers andAllied prisoners.
The number of Koreans who were taken to
the Kamaishi Mine and Kamaishi Iron Works
is estimated to have been about 2,200. Thosedeaths which were confirmed by records arenumbered 18 at the Kamaishi Mine, 39 at theKamaishi Iron Works, and 13 others elsewherein Kamaishi.

Kamaishi Mine

Site of the blast furnace in the Hashino Iron Mine

Kamaishi and Iron Works
Hashino Iron Mining and Smelting Site (the oldest western-style blast furnace in Japan),in Kamaishi, Iwate, is one of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. The furnace

36

Gathering for commemoration of Kamaichi vitims held in Korea on 2 October 1997. The lawsuit against the New
Nippon Steel in Japan ended with the settlement out of court. The claimants lost the case before the Osaka court.
In the Korean action, they are still waiting for the judgment of the Supreme Court after long years.

37

In September 1995, the families of the Koreans who had been victimized because of
the bombardments and other reasons, joined in filing lawsuits against both the Japanese
government and the New Nippon Steel (the successor of the Imperial Steel Works). They
claimed the return of the remains of the deceased, the payment of non-paid wages,
compensation for mental damages as well as the publication of apology in newspapers.
In one case, New Nippon Steel made a settlement with the bereaved families providing
20,050,000 yen and a memorial monument.
The number of Chinese forced laborers in the Kamaishi Mine was 197 in November
1944 and 91 in February 1945, 288 in total. Among them, 123 people died there. In
the case of Allied prisoners, the number is 401 at Kamaishi Iron Works, and 410 at theKamaishi Mine, over 800 in total. 65 of them died with 34 people dead in the US naval
bombardments.

3

Mr. Kyusu Kim, sent to the Yawata Steel Works at the age of 17
In around January 1943, he was taken to the
Yawata Steel Works from Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do
Province of Korea. He didn’t know where andwhat he was going to do until he arrived at Tobata Port in Fukuoka, Japan. After the moral andmilitary training for 2 weeks at the training center
called Myoken, he was deployed in the Yawata
Steel Works. He was in charge of operation andmanagement of the line switching equipment at the signal station for communications withthe trains carrying the various raw materials and products within the factory. He worked
in two shifts a day with no permission for outings and private liberties.
Having been compelled to work in a foreign country at an early age, he cried mostof the time from hunger and loneliness. After 3 months, he tried to escape with a friend,
but was caught and tortured for several days. He did not receive any explanation fromthe company on his wage.
- From the testimony given as a claimant for the lawsuit against Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, 15 June 2007

Mr. Sukbong Ju, mobilized twice, labor and military conscription
At the age of 19 in 1943, he was sent from Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do Province of Korea,
to the Yawata Steel Works. He could not evade conscription because, if he did not go,
food rations would be stopped and his family would be starved to death. At the Yawata
Steel Works, he did simple manual works such as shoveling coal on three shifts per day.
38

Koreans were not placed in positions where
they could learn skills. The atmosphere wasdiscriminatory against Koreans considered as a
low-level nation. The rations were so insufficientthat he was always hungry. He witnessed that
Allied prisoners working in the nearby furnace
picked up and ate the peel of tangerines on
the roadside.
As he had to wear a cloth lettered with theword “Conscripted”, he could not run far away.
If caught, they would be beaten badly near to death. The wage was not paid under thepretext of remitting to home. To him, the most painful thing was hunger, the most frightening the air raids. With the frequent air raids on the ammunition factories around Yawata,he spent many nervous days. When he reached the age of 20, he received yet anothernotice for military conscription and left the Steel Works.
- From the interview in preparation for the additional lawsuit against New Nippon SteelWorks on 17 September, 2009.

Mr. Cheongu Lee, sent to Yawata Steel Works at the age of 17
He was sent from Seocheon, Chungcheongnam-do
Province of Korea to Yawata Steel Works in September
1942. The clerk of myeon, the township office, came witha Japanese policeman and told him to come to the office for the labor conscription by certain date. He had tocomply because his parents would get harassed if he did
not answer. At the Yawata Steel Works, he worked at afactory that produced ammonia fertilizer. He saw the Allied
prisoners put to hard labor. In 1943, he escaped from theYoung look of Cheongu Lee at thefactory and worked as an odd-job man at the Imamura
time of forced mobilization
Workshop in Wakamatsu.
After the liberation, he went to Shimonoseki to return home, but he could not get passenger tickets. Other returnees poured into the port city of Shimonoseki. While waiting,tens of people died of starvation, diseases and epidemics on a daily basis. He heardthat tickets could be obtained quickly if he helped to remove the dead bodies. He took
the work for 10 days and could go home.
- The Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization
under Japanese Colonialism, “Oral Archives of the Victims of Forced Mobilization”, Vol.
3: On board the steamboat, I might have become a sea ghost, 2006 [in Korean]39

Map relating to Yawata Steel Works and Chikuho coalfields

Information for Visitors
Mugunghwa Hall
The charnel house established by the Korean-Japanese Executive Committee to Establish a
Monument to the Victims of Forced Labor in the Charnel House style (currently the Mugunghwa
Hall Friendship Group) at the Iizuka Cemetery in December 2000. Around the hall, there isa gallery with carvings about the site’s history of forced labor.

Nittetsu Yawata Harbor
Yawata Steel Works Repair Shop
Yawata Steel Works Former Forge Shop

Shimonoseki
KokuraUbe

Moji
Yawata Steel Works First Head Office

Higashida Blast Furnace
No.1 Historical Site
Kawachi Reservoir

Onga River Pumping Station

Nogataaaaaaaaa
Tower of Reinstatement
Mugunghwa Hall

Shokan Bodai (Memorial Monument)
Shin-Iizuka

Tagawaita
Tagawa City History and Coal Museum

HakataNittetsu Futase Coal Mine

Tokuika Monument, Aso Yoshikuma

1594-1 Shoshi, Iizuka-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation Take a JR bus in front of JR ShinIizuka Station and get off at the Kasagibashi stop Opening Hours 08:30~17:00 Closed
around the end of year and the New Year’s day Entrance Fee Free

40

41

Tagawa City History and Coal Museum

Onga River Pumping Station

Opened in 1983, the museum is situated at the old Mitsui Tagawa Mine Ita pit which celebrates
the largest in the Chikuho area. It has collections of about 15,000 materials relating to thecoal industry including the annotated paintings and diaries of Yamamoto Sakube, inscribed in2011 as the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. In the park, there are the monument ofconsolation for the deceased victims of the Korean conscript and the monument of requiem
for the Chinese forced laborers.

Began operations in 1910 to bring water from the Onga River to the Yawata Steel Works. The
pumping station is still operating and the inside is not open to the public. View is allowed onlyin the designated place where a display panel is set up.

2734-1 Ita, Tagawa-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation 8 min. walk from JR·Heisei Chikuho
Railway Tagawa-Ita Station Opening Hours 09:30~17:30 (entrance until 17:00) Closed
Every Monday and around the end of year and the New Year’s day Entrance Fee Adult
400 Yen, high school students 100 Yen, middle and elementary school students 50 Yen

Yawata Steel Works First Head OfficeConstructed in 1899, andused as the head office of
the Yawata Steel works until
1922. View is allowed onlyin the designated place
without special permission.

Edamitsu, Yawata Higashi-ku, Kitakyushu-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation 10 min. walkfrom JR SPACE WORLD station Opening Hours 9:30~17:00 (entrance possible until 16:30)
Closed Every Monday Entrance Fee Free ✔Commentator available

42

1 Chome-3-1 Dotenouchi, Nakama-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation 25 min. walk from
JR Chikuzen-Habu Station Opening Hours N/A Entrance Fee Free ✔Commentary isavailable on weekends and holidays (10:00~16:00)

Higashida Blast Furnace No.1 Historical Site
Began operations in 1901. The
existing blast furnace is the onethat had operated from 1962 to
1972. The site is made public
now as a historical park withpanel exhibitions.

2 Chome-3-12 Higashida, Yawatahigashi-ku, Kitakyūshū-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation 5 min. walk from JR SPACE WORLD Opening Hours 09:00~17:00 Closed aroundthe end of year and the New Year’s day Entrance Fee Free43

3-2 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Nagasaki Shipyard: From torpedoes and warships to the Atomic
bombing

Where there is Mitsubishi, there is a war
Mitsubishi is the representative of the conglomerates grown with the aggressive wars
of Japanese imperialism. Mitsubishi’s mining and heavy industries were indispensable
to Japan in warfare. During the expansion of aggression, Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Shipyard
produced 82 warships and more than 10,000 torpedoes. The Musashi, a warship built
here, was propagated as the ‘pride of the Japanese battleship’. The torpedoes used in
the attack on Pearl Harbor were also made in Nagasaki.
At the time of opening to foreign trade, the Edo shogun government established withthe guidance of Dutch engineers the Nagasaki Naval Training Center and the Nagasaki
Yotetsusho, a repair shop of naval vessels. These were the beginning of Nagasaki Shipyard. The Meiji Government put it under the management of the governmental Bureau
of Nagasaki Shipbuilding.

Rapid growth from a small shop to a munitions conglomerate
In 1873, Yataro Iwasaki established Mitsubishi Shokai. Next year when Japan invaded Taiwan, the company raised enormous profits mainly by procuring ships for thetransportation of soldiers. In 1881, Mitsubishi took over Takashima Mine, while in 1884
it run Nagasaki Shipyard entrusted by the Bureau of Nagasaki Shipbuilding which was
eventually bought in 1887. Making profits from shipping, coal and shipbuilding, Mitsubishi
grew into a conglomerate.

Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard building the warship Tosa

44

Mitsubishi Shipyard (postcard)45

3Dock No.3 Mitsubishi Shipyard (postcard)

Nagasaki Shipyard repairing the aegis ship (2003)

Mitsubishi built shipyard docks No.2 and No.3 in 1903, and bought its Giant Cantilever
Crane from the United Kingdom in 1909. With the establishment of Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries Ltd. in 1934, the shipyard took a new name Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Nagasaki Shipyard. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was Japan’s largest manufacturer ofships and airplanes, Nagasaki being its strongpoint. During the wartime, Mitsubishi’s
factories of weapons, steel, shipbuilding and electricity were concentrated on the plain
near Urakami River in Nagasaki, while the large factories of Mitsubishi Shipyard lined
along the Nagasaki port. Warships and torpedoes were produced at Nagasaki Shipyard, military aircrafts at Nagoya Aircraft Corporation, tanks and other military vehicles
at Mitsubishi Tokyo. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries owned Mitsubishi equipment factories

The atomic bombing on Nagasaki made also Korean workers mobilized forcibly suffer.
While the exact number of Korean victims is still unknown, it is believed that Koreans took
10% of the more than 300,000 victims of the bombing. Allied prisoners were also forced
to work at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard. At the nearby shipyard of
Kawanami Industry, Koreans and Allied prisoners were also forced to work.

in northeast China and docks in Taiwan.

Forcible exploitation of human and material resources
In the Asia-Pacific War, Mitsubishi exploited resources and the people on the spot
under severe conditions in various parts of Asia. Approximately 6,000 Koreans were
forcibly mobilized to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Shipyard alone. Korean
people were also transported to work at Mitsubishi’s Nagasaki Weapons Factory, SteelWorks, and Electric Works. Their labor was further used to build underground factories
and for port transportation.

46

Mr. Hansu Kim, a forced laborer at Nagasaki Shipyard in 1944
Hearing that he wouldn’t be drafted if he had a job
being an only son, he was employed at the state monopoly branch in Yeonbaek, Hwanghae-do Province of
Korea. But in August 1944, he was forcibly deported toNagasaki Shipyard. About 200 gathered in the townshipof Yeonbaek were all put into the train to Busan, from
where they were headed by a ferry to Shimonoseki.
He was assigned to a quarters and received moral
education and military training. During the education,
the Japanese platoon commander made intimidating
Hansu Kim at the testimony hear inJune 2010
remarks publicly about the rapes and massacres committed in China during the Sino-Japanese War.

47

He worked in the factory plating with copper and zinc. While doing the work of bending copper pipe, a chain was cut and his toe was broken by this accident. Though hevisited a hospital, I was just given an injection. As they did not give permission for leave,
he was made to continue to work with swollen foot. On his way to and from the plating
laboratory, he could see the place where they built aircraft carriers and mini-submarines.
Repairing ships with holes made by bombings, he saw many dead bodies of soldiers
who had drowned while trying to stop the ship from sinking. Though he was exposed
to radiation in the midst of working 3.2 km away from the hypocenter of the atomic blast
at Nagasaki, he managed to survive with luck as a thick steel plate covered the wholebody. To his estimation, 80% of his fellow conscripted might have been killed.
- The Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization
under Japanese Colonialism, “August Engraved on My Body”, 2008.

3

Part of the Shipbuilding Department at Nagasaki Shipyard. The quarters were cut off
from the outside, and naval guards patrolled. They were under the constant surveillanceand control of the Military Police. The conscripted were supposed to receive, after threemonths, both monthly wages and other payments such as family allowance, allowancefor non-absence work and over-time allowance. But as deductions were made on various pretexts such as contributions to retirement reserve fund and national savings, they
could scarcely get practically any cash money.
On August 9, 1945, he was exposed to radiation of the Atomic bombing at the workplace of transporting steel for tunnel building. Since he had seen the hellish Nagasaki,
he was quite determined to survive and to come home. Together with some colleagues,
he escaped from Nagasaki and returned to Korea.
- Judgment of the First Instance for the Damages Claim brought by Mr. Sungil Kim(Nagasaki District Court of Japan, 2 December 1997)

Mr. Sungil Kim, compelled to work under surveillance and control
He was the head of a household supporting family livelihood with a clerk job at the
Herbal Medicine Control Union in Gyeongsangnam-do Province of Korea. When hereceived a writ of conscription in December 1944, I hid to avoid the conscription. In thefollowing January, he was caught by a Japanese policeman and a Korean higher-line
police detective and handed over to the staff of the Total Force Department of the Busan
City Hall and then to the staff sent by the Mitsubishi group. The very next day, he wasshipped by ferry from Busan to the Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard.
He was deployed as a member of the water ranger section, the Supplementary Work48

49

Map of Nagasaki Shipyard related facilities
and surroundings

Information for Visitors
Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum

Sumiyoshi
Nishiurakami

Site of Mitsubishi Weapons, Sumiyoshi Tunnel Factory ★

Museum built by Nagasaki citizens to continue the will of Oka Masaharu who dedicated hislife to reveal the historical facts relating to Japan’s war responsibility and wrongdoings, andto transmit Japan’s history of wrongdoings.

Peace Memorial Park. Urakami branch of Nagasaki prison
Hypocenter of the atomic bomb
Matsuyamamachi

UrakamiNagasakiOka Masaharu Memorial
Nagasaki Peace Museum

Mitsubishi Former Pattern Shop
Nagasaki Shipyard ★

Mitsubishi Giant Cantilever Crane

Mitsubishi Senshokaku Guest House
Mitsubishi No.3 Dry Dock
Glover House and Office

Kosuge Slip Dock

★ Sites of forced labor of Koreans50

9-4 Nishizakamachi Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation 5 min. walkfrom JR Nagasaki Station Opening Hours
09:00~17:00, Closed every Monday andaround end of year and the New Year’s day
Entrance Fee Adults 250 Yen, High SchoolStudents 150 Yen, Children free51

Site of Mitsubishi Weapons, Sumiyoshi Tunnel Factory

Peace Memorial Park

A factory in evacuation of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagasaki Weapons Plant, built at theend of the Asia-Pacific War. Accepting the demands from citizens, Nagasaki City placed an
information board at the site that states “Many of the residents here were Korean workers.
Some of them were forcibly conscripted and labored under harsh conditions to constructthis tunnel.”A park covering the hypocenter and surroundings of the atomic bomb blast on August 9,1945, and Urakami branch of Nagasaki prison. There are the Monument Commemorating
Korean Victims of the Atomic Bombing built in 1979 by the ‘Group for the Protection of the
Human Rights of the Korean-Japanese Community in Nagasaki, Japan,’ the Monument
Commemorating Foreign Victims of War and for the Nuclear Abolishment and No War for
Humanity’ built in 1981, and the Monument Commemorating Chinese Victims of the Atomic
Bombing built in 2008.

18 Sumiyoshimachi, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation Take the tram in frontof JR Nagasaki to the Sumiyoshi stop, 5 min. walk Opening Hours Open at all times
Entrance Fee Free

Kosuge Slip Dock Site
Ship repair facility established by theSatsuma Clan and Thomas Glover in
1869. The facility was acquired by Mitsubishi in 1887 and closed in 1953.

5 Kosuge-cho, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation Take a Nagasaki bus in frontof JR Nagasaki Station and get off at the Kosuge-machi bus station, 1 min. walk Opening
Hours Weekends and Holidays, 10:00~16:00 Entrance Fee Free ✔Commentator Available

52

9 Matsuyamamachi, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation Take the tram in frontof JR Nagasaki Station and get off at the Matsuyamamachi stop, 3 min. walk Opening
Hours Open at all times Entrance Fee Free53

Mitsubishi Former Pattern Shop
Established in 1898 with theincreased demand for castingproducts. It reopened as the
Nagasaki Shipyard Museum in1985 and open to the public.

3-3 Takashima and Hashima Coal Mines: Hell Island,a symbol of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.’styranny

1-1 Akunouramachi, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation Take the museum
bus in front of JR Nagasaki station (reservations required in advance by telephone, bus
operates 6 times a day) Opening Hours 9:00~16:30 Closed Every second Saturday, andaround end of year and the New Year’s day Entrance Fee Adults 800 Yen, Elementaryand Middle School Students 400 Yen Telephone Bookings 095-828-4134 (Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries, Ltd. Nagasaki Shipyard Museum)

Glover House
Built in 1863 by Thomas Glover,a merchant who made a fortune
with the importation of weapons. The house is located on ahill, overlooking the Nagasaki
Shipyard. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. bought the housein 1939 when the battleshipMusashi was in construction.
The house was donated to Nagasaki city in 1957.

Chinese Quarters
Brothels (Honda, Morimoto, Yoshida:
Korean women were also taken)
Korean Quarters in Yoshida Canteen
at the first floor of the building
Korean Quarters in the first floor (late 1944)
Korean Quarters (the early stage of mobilization, later enlarged into a 4 story building)
Korean Quarters

8-1 Minamiyamatemachi Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki-ken Transportation Take the tram in frontof JR Nagasaki Station and get off at the Ouratenshudoshita Station, 8 min. walk Opening
Hours 08:00~18:00 (subject to seasonal variation, entrance allowed until 20 min. before
closing) Entrance Fee Adults 610 Yen, High School Students 300 Yen, Elementary andMiddle School Students 180 Yen

54

Detailed illustration of the Hashima pit, the Mitsubishi Takeshima Coal Mine (English translation added)

55

Takashima used prison labor in mining
The island of Takashima lies 14.5km away from Nagasaki port and the island of
Hashima 4km from Takashima. Since 1881 Mitsubishi had managed the Takashima Coal
Mine and in 1890 purchased Hashima expanding its operations.
While the mining of coal in Takashima went back to the early 18th century, its development was fully fledged with the modernization of Japan. In 1868, it was run by the
Saga Domain and Glover & Co. Glover introduced the modern coal mining technology
to Takashima, and this technology was also used in Chikuho and Hokkaido. In 1874, theTakashima mines became state-run and began to use prisoners in mining. Mitsubishi
took over the Takashima Coal Mine in 1881 and the Hashima Coal Mine in 1890.

3

As the violent labor management heightened the consciousness of resistance on thepart of the workers, strikes broke out at Takashima and Hashima in 1897. In addition
to continuous industrial accidents, 307 people were killed in an explosion at Kakize Pitof Takashima in 1906. From the beginning of the Mitsubishi management to the end of
the Second World War, more than 1,000 mine workers died of industrial accidents andillnesses.

Mitsubishi’s tyrannical labor management
Many workers lost their lives in the Takashima Coal Mine. In 1885 when Mitsubishi wasoperating the mine, the outbreak of cholera resulted in the death of 561 people. Sanitaryconditions were appalling and violence against the miners and deadly accidents was
rampant.
The miners made collective resistance several times and the Takashima Coal Mine
became widely known as a ‘symbol of tyranny’. Koichi Matsuoka, a journalist, was able toinfiltrate the Takashima Coal Mine with the help of an agency for employment mediation.
In June 1888, he wrote an article titled “The Miserable Condition of the Takashima Coal
Mine” in the “Nihonjin” (Japanese), a mouthpiece journal issued by the Seikyo-sha, apolitical critical organization. The oppressive attitude of the Takashima Coal Mine towards
the 3,000 miners became a social issue.

Pagoda and its inside, with the name the Tomb of the Thousand which contained the remains of the dead with norelatives, built in 1920 (Takashima Coal Labor Union, “30 Year History”, 1977). With the colosure of Hashima, theremains from Hashima were collected here, but the closure of Takashima Mine led to the destruction of the charnel
house. The remains were then moved to the Kinsho Temple. The Korean remains are supposed to have been here.

56

57

Distribution Map of Takashima

Hashima and Nakanoshima, Takashima (photo of September 2017). Hashima is a small island with the distanceof 160 meters from East to West, 480 meters from North to South and the circumference of 1,200 meters.

Colonies as provider of low-wage workforce
Glover Villa
Brothel house (Korean ‘comfort women’)Kinsho Temple
Remnant of the Hokkei
Well Pit
Tomb of the Thousand

Kakise Pit

Accommodation for Koreans

Due to the shortage of workers, Mitsubishi Takashima
Coal Mine commenced recruiting from all over Japan. On
21 September, 1917, it received the permission to recruit incolonial Korea, bringing about 150 people to Takashima.
In an effort to keep on hiring Koreans, Mitsubishi came to
deploy the recruitment personnel in Korea.
Naturally, the number of casualties among the Korean
workers began to rise in the Takashima Mine. 2 Korean
workers were amongst the injured in a gas explosion at
the Futago Mine in May 1918. At the Kakize Pit, too, aworker died in a fall in February 1919 and the incident ofa roof falling happened in December 1919.

Chinese prison camp

Pagoda Commemorating theVictims of the Kakize Pit Disasterof 1906(“30 Year History”, 1977)

Takashima Coal Museum ofNagasaki City

Nakayama Accommodation
for Koreans

Futago Pit

Reclaimed since 1945

58

Full view of the Kakize Pit, Takashima (postcard)

59

Distribution Map of Hashima (circa 1945)

Chinese prison camp

Mitsubishi OfficeTunnelRestaurant(Brothel, Korean ‘comfort women’)No.2 shaft‘Hell Gate’
Landing Stage

2nd fl.
Loading dock

9th fl.
Hashima Shrine

Crane

9th fl.
School60

Hospital

Hashima is also called as “Gunkanjima” (Battleship Island) as its look resembles awarship. The whole island itself was a coal mine with pit shafts spread going throughdeep into the subsoil of the sea. Mining at Hashima began in modern times when the
Saga Domain dug the first shaft in 1887. Since Mitsubishi took over the mine management in 1890, the mining had rapidly expanded with the second shaft opened in 1895,
the third 1896, and the fourth 1925. The coal from Hashima was used particularly forcoke making at Yawata Steel Works.
The expansion of mine facilities was followed by the sea reclamation and the construction of sea walls. The housings for mine workers were built, even high rise apartments
up to 7 and 9 stories. In bad weather, the waves rose as high as the ninth floor. In 1960,
when it was most populated, around 5,300 people lived in this tiny island.

The only escape from Hell Island is death

7th fl.

No.4 shaft

Gunkanjima – the “Battleship island” with high story apartmens

4th fl.

4th fl.

Accommodation for Koreans

At the Takashima
and Hashima Coal
Mines, a UNESCOWorld Heritage site,
more than 4,000 Koreans had been forcibly
mobilized to work since1939. For the mobilized
Koreans, Takashima
was a prison without
iron bars and a workplace of horror. The enBird-eye view of the Hashima Pit (ca. 1938)
trance gate still existingon the quayside was called the ‘Hell Gate’ and the high embankment surrounding theisland prevented the workers from running away. Escape was almost impossible and it
was none other than the “Hell island” for the dragged people.
Korean laborers mobilized in Hashima were placed in the lodgings such as the fourstory building facing northward. In the case of Hashima, the number of mobilized Koreansis estimated to be over thousand from 1939 to 1945. The number of deaths which could
be identified through the documents relating to cremation, is about 50. More than halfof the deaths were caused by accidents. The records wrote down the causes of death
simply as asphyxiation due to mine collapse, crushing, external injuries and drowningwith no further explanation.
Those Korean laborers had to spend the days of life and death under the harsh working

61

3

4 story building for encamping Koreans

Underground of the above building

conditions and violence. One of the survivors testified that life on Hashima was so hardthat he had even deliberated on whether to amputate his body parts in order to make anexcuse for getting out of the island. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki
in August 1945, some of the Koreans were sent to work for the reconstruction of the city
and were exposed to the nuclear radiation.

 r. Chun-gi Yoon, dragged into Hiroshima from Kimjae-gun, JeollaM
buk-do Province in 1943
He was placed in the building behind the hospital. One third of his wages went toforced savings and another third was said to be remitted to his home. When he returned
to Korea, he found that there had been no remittances at all. For meals, the workers had
only a bowel of steamed rice from overseas with a soup. As there was a potato about thesize of a fist in the bowel, it contained only about three spoonful of rice.
He worked in three shifts under low ceilings and had to extricate the amount of coalequaling more than ten wagon loads a day. After the surrender of Japan on August 15,
1945, the conscripted laborers gathered their money together and were able to board
a ship to Masan, Korea.
- “Song of Lament by a Million People”, a documentary 1999

 t the age of 14, Mr. Jangseob Choi was forcibly mobilized to workA
in Hashima
He was forcibly sent to Hashima from Insan, Jeollabuk-do Province of Korea in 1943.
When the county governor scolded his staff severely saying “Why did you bring a childlike that?”, he answered back saying “To make up for the assigned number of the people.”
The next day he was dragged off to Busan by train. While no explanation was given of62

what kind of place Hashima was, the authorities told
him and other mobilized Koreans simply that they weregoing somewhere nice and used every other deceptivemeans to prevent runaways.
Mr. Jangseob Choi was put into the undergroundlodging of a 9 story building. He belonged to the 2company of the Harada Corps and forced to work on
the mining ground. If caught in escaping, the person
would be tortured and beaten with a rubber tube till
the skin peeled off. The situation was not so composed
enough to raise any collective resistance, being nothMr. Jangseob Choi forcibly mobilized
ing better than in a prison cell. On 18 August, 1946,
into Hashima (July 2016)a few days after the Atomic bombing, he went to the
Nagasaki city to clean up and thought that “This is the human hell”.
- The Nagasaki Association to Protect Human Rights of Koreans in Japan, “Listening
to the whispers from the Warship Island”, revised and expanded ed. 2016

A World Heritage site that does not meet the UNESCO standard
Both Takashima and Hashima of the Takashima Coal Mine are included as the constituent properties of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji
Industrial Revolution’. It is to be noted that theconstructed structures relating to coal mining
on Takashima were torn down with the closure of the mine pits. Most of the structures
Remnant of the Hokkei Well Pit, Takashima in ’70s
at Hashima were built after 1910.
(“30 Year History”, 1977)
Since the Japanese government set theperiod of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial
Revolution’ up to 1910, only such remnants as
the Hokkei Well Pit in Takashima, the verticalshaft pit of the Meiji era as well as the coastal
embankment in Hashima belong to the sites
registered as UNESCO World Heritage. In
other words, the entire islands of both Takashima and Hashima are not part of the ‘Sites of
Coastal embankment of Hashima (Photo of SepJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’. Nevertember 2017)
theless, the current website for the ‘Sites ofJapan's Meiji Industrial Revolution’ presents the whole Hashima as a World Heritage site.

63 ap of the related facilities in Takashima
Mand Hashima
Remnant of the Hokkei Well Pit
Accommodation for Koreans
Chinese prison
camp

Information for Visitors
Takashima Coal Mine
There was a vertical shaft pit using a steam engine
for the first time in Japan (Hokkei Well Pit) which
had been developed since 1869. It was bought
by Mitsubishi in 1881 and closed in 1986.

Takashima Coal Museum of Nagasaki City
Takashima

Takashimamachi, Nagasaki-shi Transportation 35 min. from Nagasaki Port and 12 min.
from Iojima Port by high-speed boat Entrance
Fee FreeNakanoshima
Accommodation for Koreans
Hashima
Chinese prison camp

Takashima Coal Museum of Nagasaki City

Gunkanjima Museum
Nangoshimyo Tomb Stone for theVictims of the Disasters at Sea with
no Relatives

NomozakiThis museum preserves and exhibits materials relating to the coal industry. Opened
in 1988, it presents the history of the Takashima Coal Mine, including a labor union
flag here shown in the pictures.
2706-8 Takashimamachi, Nagasaki-shi, Transportation 2 min. walk from Takashima
Port Opening Hours 09:00~17:00 Closed around end of year and the New Year’s day
Entrance Fee Free

6464

65

Hashima Coal MineIn 1887, the Saga Domain started to develop the first vertical shaft pit and sold to Mitsubishi in
1890. Ceased operations in 1974 and opened to the public in 2009. At present, the remainsof the Chinese prison camp can be viewed.

Gunkanjima Museum, Nangoshimyo Tomb Stone for the Victims of t
he Disasters at Sea with no Relatives
The Gunkanjima Museum was originally opened in 2003 using part of the Nomozaki Town
Local Museum. With the enlistment of the facilities of the Hashima Coal Mine as UNESCOWorld Heritage, it reopened in the present location in 2016. It is now managed by Nagasaki
City. A 10-minute walk along the coast from the Museum towards Nagasaki Station will lead to
the Nangoshimyo Tomb Stone, which was built over the grave where bodies that had driftedfrom Hashima were buried. In 1985, the tomb itself was excavated by the ‘The Nagasaki Association to Protect Human Rights of Koreans in Japan’ and the human remains were found.

Remains of the Chinese Camp

Takashima, Takashimamachi, Nagasaki-shi Transportation It is essential beforehand to
apply for the permit for disembarkation tour. The tour course, the schedule of sailing andthe ship fare all varies depending on the shipping company. Entrance Fee Adults 300
Yen Elementary School Students 150 Yen

66

562 Nomomachi Nagasaki-shi Transportation 60 min. by Nagasaki bus. Take the bus
in front of JR Nagasaki Station and get off at the Undokoenma stop Opening Hours
09:00~17:00 Closed around end of year and the New Year’s day Entrance Fee Adults
200 Yen, Elementary and Middle School Students 100 Yen

673-4 Miike Coal Mine: The growth of Mitsui Group withforced labor

Miike Coal Mine developed with prisoners’ labor
Kyushu is the region where
there are a number of coalmines
together with Hokkaido. The
Miike Mine run by the MitsuiGroup was the largest in Japan.
When the Japanese government
developed the coal mine, prisThe Shuzikan, the prison exclusive for the Miike Mine (Photo ofoners were used. The Mitsui &September 2017)
Co. profited from selling the coalfrom Miike. In 1889, it took over the mine from the government.
Since 1873, the forced labor of prisoners had been used at the Miike Coal Mine forthe transportation of coal. In 1883, a ‘riot’ was broken out at the Oura Pit by the prisoners from Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Kumamoto, demanding an improvement in treatment.
When the smoke from ledger books set on fire by the prisoners filled the inside of thepit, the management side sealed off the mine’s entrance, leaving ordinary mineworkers
and prisoners still inside. In the same year, a prison was set up exclusive for the Miike
Coal Mine, where prisoners were treated like slaves. The labor of prisoners went on until
1931 and the number of their deaths exceeded 2,400 over the years.
The Mitsui Group was grown into the largest conglomerate in Japan with businessin various industries, including trade, banking, mining, shipbuilding and railways. In fullcooperation with the policies of the Japanese Imperial government, the Group madeprofits from the wars. The Miike Coal Mine was the center of the coal-chemical industrial
complex in the Omuta area. Being the largest coal mine in Japan, it producing more than
3,000,000 ton of coal a year during the wartime. The major mining areas were Manda
Pit, Miyaura Pit, Yotsuyama Pit and Mikawa Pit.

The Pagoda of Nirvana and the Monument of Group Burial in commemoration of Miike Mine Prisoners

69

3

Manda Pit of the Miike Coal Mine (postcard)

Yotsuyama Pit (postcard)

Since the beginning of the 20th century, ordinary workers had increased more thanprison laborers at the Miike Coal Mine. After going through World War I, the awarenessof workers’ rights had heightened. During the rice riots in Japan in 1918, the laborers at
Miike Coal Mine rose up, demanding higher wages. As the strikes spread widely with
the Manda Pit as the center, the army was needed to repress them. In 1920, in the nameof the harmony between labor and management, the Mitsui Group established a Kyoai(literally ‘love together’) union to appease its workers from the perspective of capital.
In June 1924, laborers rose again and organized groups for strike action at the Miike
Workshop, Miike Dye Works, Yotsuyama Pit, Miyaura Pit and other workplaces. These
groups demanded particularly a 30% increase in wages, payment amounting to 30-daysof work per year for retirement allowance, the abolition of the existing Kyoai union, payment of wages for the victims of industrial accidents, and disability and death benefits.
At the time, 6,800 laborers out of 19,000 in the Miike region, participated in the strike.
The environmental pollution such as obnoxious fumes and polluted water caused by the
Mitsui Coal-Chemical was another issue to be dealt with.
After the suppression of these strikes, the Mitsui conglomerate strengthened its control
over its laborers by such measures as the investigation of thought of laborers, the moral
education and the expansion of status differences. In 1940, when the wartime regime
took hold ever strongly, a branch of the Association for the Industrial National Service,a nationwide war cooperation organization, was set up in the place of the Kyoai union.
In this atmosphere of emphasizing the nationalistic industrial cooperation in war efforts,
Koreans were forcibly mobilized en masse.

 o the Front of ‘Industrial National Service’ - Forcibly mobilized KoT
reans
Coalmines were the workplace where the labor intensity was high and the death rate
highest. About 40% of the Koreans who had been deported to the Japanese mainland
were sent to coal mines. At the Miike Coal Mine alone, more than 9,000 Koreans wereforced to labor. The Miike Coal Mine is well known as a place where a number of Koreans,

70

Chinese and Allied prisoners were used as forced labor.
A staff of personnel management for the Coal Mine confirmed the forced mobilization,
stating that “we say that we brought along the workers, but in reality, we captured andbrought them. Everywhere we went, we got cooperation, with money and presents, ofthe head of a myeon (township), the Japanese Military Police and other powerful people.
If we went to the villages during the daytime, all males would have already run away andbe absent. So we went at night. Sometimes we caught Koreans who passed on the roadand loaded them into our truck.”At the site of forcedlabor, those Korean
workers who did not follow the instructions weretreated no different fromprisoners or slaves. They
had been subjected tocruel violence, for example, being forced tokneel down with a bamboo rod behind their
Full view of the Miike Port (postcard)knees, beaten up with abelt, and hit in the stomach after forcible drink of water. Amidst of everyday verbal abuse, violence and discrimination, accidents were rampant and escapes occurred one after another.
Koreans were also mobilized at other Mitsui affiliated companies such as Miike DyeWorks, the Omuta Factory of the Electro-chemical Industry (Denka), the Omuta Worksof the Orient High Pressure Industry (later Mitsui Chemical Industry). The Omuta Factory
used Allied prisoners of war as forced laborers.

Mr. Jongpil Lee who escaped from the Miike Coal Mine andHe was taken to Mitsui’s Miike Coal Mine from Goesan, Chungcheongbuk-do Provinceof Korea in 1943 and stationed to live in the dormitory for Koreans at Yotsuyama Pit. He
did the mining work in the underground tunnel about 500 meters below the surface which
could be reached by elevator. The norma, the daily assignment, was 15 loads of minewagon. It was the amount that could not be met unless one worked 10 to 12 hours a day.
As safety facilities were not properly equipped, injuries arose at the rate of a person
every two days. If a worker had to take the work off due to injury or disease, he had toshout out, “Reporting! I am short of working spirit,” and then received the meal reduced
by one third. As he would be beaten by the Japanese labor commissioners unless heworked at least 20 days a month, the supposed working terms, he had no choice but to71

head into the mine even if he had a high fever.
Around July, 1944, there was one Korean laborer who appealed to us saying, “Before
long, Korea will eventually become independent. Do not become a henchman of Japan.
The way to resist now is to slow down the work.” This person was arrested by the military
police and said to be sentenced to life imprisonment. Although 30 to 40 percent of wages
went to forced savings as a means to prevent escapes, there was a flow of run-aways.
The workload for the remaining Koreans increased to 20 mine wagons. When there
was a bombing of Fukuoka by the US B29 bomber, he thought that “Now the day isnear when Japan will surrender. It would be foolish to die in a place like this”. In February
1945, he ran away with his fellow laborers.

3

 ap of the related facilities and surrounding ofM
the Miike Coal Mine

Amagi Park ·Monument to Koreans Victims

Higashi-amagi

Mr. Junggu Sohn, forced to labor at Miike Coal Mine in 1944
When he was working at a textile factory at Gaepung-gun County, Gyeonggi-do
Province of Korea, he was forcibly mobilized to work at the Miike Coal Mine at theage of 21. His work was to install supporting posts in the mine tunnels to prevent
collapse. As he carried the wooden posts
on his back into narrow tunnels, he had
a severe back pain. In the steamy andhot underground tunnels, he had to work
two shifts a day. As the frequent leak of gas in the tunnels made the risk of explosion
high, he testified that there were many cases of death because of the collapse of tunnel
or explosions.
- Testimony on 7 May 2017

Omuta City Coal Industry and Science Museum
Omuta

Miyaura Pit ★·Monument toChinese Victims

Remains of Shuzikan
Mikawa Pit ★
Miike Port

Miyanohara Pit ★

Miike Port Aiai Square

Manda Pit ★

Yotsuyama Pit ★

Arao

Miike Coal Railway★ Sites of forced labor of Koreans72

73

Information for Visitors

Omuta City Coal Industry and Science Museum

Remnant of the Miike Shuzikan Prison
Built in 1883 by the Japanese government
to obtain labor force for Miike Coal Mine.
Having been renamed as Jail or Prison,
it was closed in 1931. At present there
remains an outer wall made of brick anda stone wall survive in the Miike Technical High School. The site was registeredas Tangible Cultural Heritage of Fukuoka
Prefecture in 1996.

4 Chome-77 Jokanmachi Omuta-shi Transportation 20 min. walk from JR Omuta Station How to Tour You can visit the outside of Miike Technical High School freely, but must
contact the school office if you want to enter the school.

Mawatari Monument, Mawatari Daiichi Park
With the urban improvement of the Mawatari Daiichi Park, the Mawatari private house of the
Mitsui Coal Mine, an accommodation facility for the Korean forced mobilized laborers, wasbrought down. The monument was established in 1997 at the request of the citizens who
had called for its preservation.

A science museum on energy resources opened in
1995. Exhibits include a wall scribble found in 1989
at the Mawatari house that shows the longing of the
Korean workers for their hometowns.
6-23 Misakimachi Omuta-shi Transportation 23 min. walk from JR Omuta Station West
Exit Opening Hours 09:30~17:00 Closed Every last Monday of the month and around endof year and the New Year’s Day Entrance Fee Adults 410 Yen, Middle School Students
or younger 200 Yen, 3 years or under Free

Miyaura Pit of Mitsui Miike Coal Mine Monument to Chinese Victims
Established in 2013 at Miyaura Sekitan Memorial Park, Omuta City by the
Fukuoka Liaison Association of theJapan-China Friendship Association,and others. The monument inscribesthat 2,481 Chinese people were deported and 635 were killed at Manda
Pit, Yotsuyama Pit, Miyaura Pit andother places.

Mawatari Daiichi Park 39-14 Mawatarimachi, Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture Transportation
Take a Nishitetsu Bus in front of JR Omuta Station and get off at Kawahara stop, 5 min.
walk Opening at all times Entrance Fee Free74

132-8 Nishimiyauramachi, Omuta-shi Transportation 15 min. walk from JR Omuta Station
Opening at all times Entrance Fee Free75

Monument to the Victims of Conscription

Mikawa Pit of Miike Coal Mine

Commemorating the Koreans who were mobilized at Miike during the Second World War, it
was established in 1995 at Amagi Park by the ‘Korea in Omuta, Japan’ with the cooperationof Omuta City, Mitsui Coal Mine, Mitsui Chemicals and the Electro-Chemical Industry.

Amagi, Omuta-shi Transportation 10 min. walk from Higashi-Amagi Station Opening at
all times Entrance Fee Free

Excavation of an inclined shaft began in1937 and the pit was closed in 1997. Well
known as the site of labor disputes, and acoal-dust explosion in 1963. Right next tothe pit is the Mitsui Port Club (opened in1908), a guesthouse for the Mitsui Group.
There is a monument to the victims of the
1963 coal dust explosion in Enmei Park,
Omuta City.

Nishiminatomachi Omuta-shi Transportation Take a Nishitetsu Bus in front of JR Ōmuta
Station and get off at the Mikawa-Machi 1-Chome stop, 3 min. walk Opening Hours
09:30~17:00 (entrance possible until 16:30) Entrance Fee Free ✔Commentator available

Miike Coal Mine Manda Pit

Miike Port (Observatory)

One of the main pits of the Miike Coal
Mine, active from 1902 to 1951.

The port was opened in 1908 for the
shipment of coal. There is the enclosed
dock with an adjustable water level, theonly one in Japan. As it is still in use, it
can be viewed only at a distance. View
is possible from the Aiai Square of MiikePort as well as the Observatory.

200-2 Haramanda Arao-shi Transportation Take a Sanko Bus in front of JR Arao Stationand get off at the Mandakoma stop, 3 min. walk Opening Hours 09:30~17:00 (entrance
possible until 16:30) Closed Every Monday and around end of year and the New YearDay Entrance Fee Adult 410 Yen High School Students 300 Yen Elementary and Middle
School Students 200 Yen ✔Commentator available, guided tour available six times a day

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Shinkōmachi, Omuta-shi Transportation Take a Nishitetsu Bus in front of JR Omuta Stationand get off at the Mikawa-Machi 1-Chome stop, 8 min. walk Opening Hours 09:30~17:00(entrance possible until 16:30) Closed Every last Monday of the month Entrance Fee Free
✔Commentator available at weekends and holidays

77Miyanohara Pit of Miike Coal Mine and the Remains of the Miike Coal Railway
The Pit was the first developed by Mitsui in 1889. Known as “Hell Pit,” where prisoners from
Miike Prison were forced to labor in severe conditions. The remains of the Miike Coal Railway
leading to Miike Port in 1905, could be found around Miyanohara Pit, Manda Pit and the area
near to Miike.

4

 he History of Forced Labor and
T
World Heritage Sites

1 Chome-86-3 Miyaharamachi Omuta-shi, Fukuoka-ken Transportation Take a Nishitetsu
Bus in front of JR Omuta Station and get off at the Suehiro-machi stop, 10 min. walk Opening Hours 09:30~17:00 Closed Every last Monday of the month Entrance Fee Free ✔
Commentator available

Items for peace donated by middle and high school students, Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum

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4-1 Forced labor at World Heritage sites

The history of forced labor is a type of ‘negative heritage’. Keeping records and archives of such heritage contributes to the formation of universal values as emphasized
by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. UNESCO World Heritage sites include
many examples of sites that show a history of forced labor or slave labor. For example,
the city of Potosi, in Bolivia, tells the story of its silver mining industry under the Spanish
dominion and forced labor of the indigenous. Liverpool, a port city of the United Kingdom
embodies a history involving immigration, the slave trade, and the industrial revolution,
while the site of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland is a place that testifies
the Holocaust and forced labor.
Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen, Germany, presents a 150-year history of heavy industry in the Ruhr Coalfield. During the Second World War, it was the sitewhere people deported from Poland, France, and other areas, as well as prisoners ofwar, had been subjected to forced labor. An exhibition at the site shows that Zollverein
had been the center of munitions production in the Ruhr, sustaining the two World Wars,
and that it was the site of forced labor by Jews, foreigners and war prisoners.
Völklinger Ironworks, located in the Saar Coalfield in Germany, also sheds light on
the history of heavy industry. Here about 70 thousand people were subjected to forcedlabor. The history of forced labor of people from many different countries, including

An exhibition room of Zollverein Site

Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site

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Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, is exhibited at the site.
As can be seen from these examples of ‘negative heritage,’ UNESCO World Heritages
do not confine themselves to a mere praise of one’s own nation or people. In addition to
the history of industrialization of its own State, they also try to realize universal values tobe shared with the world humanity in acknowledging and giving expression to the factthat there was a ‘negative history’ such as forced labor. The history of industrialization canbe approached diversely from different perspectives on capital, labor and international
relations, and is shadowed thick with ‘negative history’ such as forced labor and humanrights violations through modernization and industrialization. Not only by highlighting brightsides, but also dark history, industrial heritages can only reveal international and universal
values. In this way, the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ will then enhance theirvalue as historical heritage sites and be shared with a better understanding of history.

814-2 The unresolved issue of post-war compensation: Human rights of forced labor victims

4

In the First World War, citizens of “enemy states”
were used as forced labourers in industry in the
Saar district. These included prisoners of war from
Russia and France, civil servants male and female
from Belgium and Italy. In Völklingen they amounted
to a total of around 1,400. In the Second World War

The Japanese colonial rule of Korea led to the deprivation of lands from many Koreans,
who were then driven to become low wage workers at Japan’s coal mines, construction
sites, factories and other workplaces. When Japan’s wars of aggression expanded, notonly Korean men but also women and children were forcibly mobilized and forced towork. Mitsubishi Mining, Mitsui Mines, the Imperial Steel Works, and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries were the major companies that used forced labor. The number of Koreans
who were deported to various mines belonging to Mitsubishi Mining or Mitsui Mines exceeded 150,000. Over 9,000 Chinese were also brought to these mines for forced labor.
The victims of forced labor from Korea, China and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific havecontinued to demand that the Japanese government and companies should apologize
and provide compensation since the 1990’s.
In order to respond to the victims’ appeals, Japanese citizens and lawyers have carriedon a variety of activities such as researching the evidence necessary for the conduct oflawsuits that have been brought in Japan, collecting money and campaigning. By realizing
the so much delayed judicial justice, they are endeavoring to heal the traumatic woundsof the forced labor that arose from Japan’s colonialization and aggressive wars. The
Japanese government and the judiciary, however, rejected these calls from the victims
and the citizens supporting them. The society that does not remedy the violation of theinvaluable rights of individual victims, cannot be said to be a democratic society protecting

the use of male and female forced labour differedin quantity and quality radically to that of the FirstWorld War at Röchling’s works as well. The uppermost extremities of forced labour under the Nazis
were reached, when Goebbels proclaimed a stateof “total war”. An important transit point for the deported forced labourers from the Soviet Union was
the Ukraine. Once the deportees arrived in Germany they would be relieved of their identification
papers. They were then forced to wear the letters“OST” meaning “Ostarbeiter”(work from the East)and lived imprisoned in camps. In the Second World
War more than 12,000 males and females worked
in the Völklingen Ironworks. More than 250 of thoseforced labourers were to lose their lives.

Völklinger Ironworks and the exhibition panel on forced labor

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Press conference on the filing of the case against New Nippon Steel before the Korean court, February 2005

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human rights. The forced labor issue is a human rights issue that cannot be abandoned.
The rights of forced labor victims are not simply a civil matter of claims for damages
in tort, nor claims in war reparation agreements. Their rights are human rights of victims
of crimes against humanity that has been recognized by the international community.
These are rights that should be guaranteed no matter how much the time has passed,
and require not only compensation equivalent to the now impossible restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, but also that the truth should be
remembered (‘Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation
for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violationsof International Humanitarian Law,’ United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/147,
December 16th, 2005).
Before the Japanese courts, approximately one hundred lawsuits for postwar compensation have been brought, but most of them have been rejected with the exceptionof those brought by atomic bomb victims. The Japanese government did not conduct
thorough investigation on the issue of forced mobiliztion, and still maintains the position
that the issue has been “settled completely and finally” through the Korea - Japan Claims
Agreement of 1965. However, the Claims Agreement cannot be said to have solved theissue of compensation for individual victims caused by Japan’s aggressive wars andcolonial domination.
The Korean Supreme Court passed a judgment in 2012 stating that “it is difficult toconsider that the right to compensation for damages in tort, directly connected with inhuman wrongdoings or colonial rule involving the State authorities of Japan, was includedin the objects of application of the Claims Agreement”. The Court held that the claims ofindividuals are not extinguished by the Agreement. The judgment recognized the right4

to compensation for damages for wrongful acts closely related with the colonial domination including forced mobilization. It has become clearer that the measures taken by theJapanese government do not meet the international standard for reparation, and thatthose Japanese companies which used forced labor are also responsible for reparation.
The Korean victims of forced labor have filed a suit against various companies involvedin the use of forced labor, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo
Metal Corporation and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corporation. As they won cases at the districtand High Courts, and, at the time fo the publication of this guidebook in 2017, they are
expecting to win at the Supreme Court of Korea. The Supreme Court of Japan held in2007 that the victims’ individual claims remain to be settled. The Japanese government
as well as the involved Japanese companies, and, must respond to this.
With respect to the remains of deceased victims, there are still many that have beenabandoned and not returned to their homelands. Tens of thousands of passbooks savings
account, which can also be considered the victims’ relics, are kept in the Japan Post Bank
without being delivered to their family members. There remain still other unsolved issues.

Group of people tracking the Korean mobilized at the memorial ceremony in the Kaizima Coal Mine site (May 2014)8485

4-3 Memories of the forced mobilization and activities to ensure that it is not forgotten
To coal mines, ports and munitions factories in various parts of Japan, Koreans werebrought forcibly and sacrificed. To remember these victims and to learn lessons fromthis history, citizens have joined hands in setting up memorial stones and information.
These can also be found in the vicinity of the industrial heritage areas in Kyushu andYamaguchi regions.

1985, and is a memorial to the victims of the Yoshikuma Coal Mine accident in 1936. Of
the 29 killed in the accident, 25 were Koreans. During the period from 1939 to 1945, thenumber of Koreans brought as laborers to the Aso Yoshikuma Mine exceeded 10,000.
Yet another memorial to the Korean victims of conscription, built in 1988 could befound in the Coal-Mining Memorial Park located at the Mitsui Tagawa Coal Mine in
Tagawa-Ita. The inscription of the stone writes “In memory of those who died as a resultof forced mobilization and labor, we shall never repeat this.” There is the ‘Memorial forthe repose of dead souls’ that commemorates Chinese forced laborers, built in 2002.
The ‘Korean Dead on Duty in Coal-Mining Memorial’ of 1975 is situated at Hokoji temple
in Kawamiya, Tagawa City.

Chikuho coalfields and Memorial Stone for Koreans
Chikuho, inland Fukuoka, is a major center
for Japan’s coal industry. During the wartime era, 150,000 Koreans were brought
here. The industrial heritage of the Chikuho
coalfields is not included in ‘the Sites ofJapan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution.’ On theother hand, Sakubei Yamamoto’s drawings
and paintings of the coal mines in the region
are entered as documentary heritage on the
UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
Here will be looked at some of the memorial
works in Chikuho.
The ‘Mugunghwadang’ was established in2000 at Iizuka Cemetery located in Iizuka,
Fukuoka. Around this house, a ‘Gallery ofHistory’ was constructed in 2004. While collecting the abandoned remains of victims
Inside of ‘Mugunghwadang’even after Korea’s liberation, the ‘KoreanJapanese Executive Committee to Establish
a Monument to the Victims of Forced Labor in the Charnel House style’ stood this memorial house. This organization with a new name ‘Mugunghwadang Friendship Group’since 2004, continues to carry out the collection of remains in pursuance of peace andfriendship. Research results confirm that part of the remains in the Mugunghwadang
belong to those of Koreans who were taken to the Mitsubishi Namazuta Coal Mine, theFutase Coal Mine of the Imperial Steel Works and the Hisatsune Coal Mine.
The Tokuika Monument at the Aso Yoshikuma mine in Iizuka Yasaka was rebuilt in

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Shokan Bodai

Mawatari Memoria

Tower of Reinstatement

In Kotake-machi, Kurategun, there is a memorial tower built in 1994, called the ‘Shokan
Bodai.’ Located at the Furukawa Shakano Coal Mine, it records the history of young men
who were brought by force to harsh work.
Miyawaka City was the site of the Kaijima Onoura Coal Mine where over 10,000
thousand Koreans were taken during the war. Sengoku Park in Miyata of this City, has a‘Tower of Reinstatement’, built in 1982. “Reinstatement” here refers to demands for the
restoration of the violated rights and calls for solidarity and human dignity in memory of
all coal mine workers.

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Omuta and Nagasaki citizens’ memorial activities
In Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, siteof the Miike Coal Mine, and Nagasaki,site of the Nagasaki Shipyard, there arememorials to both Koreans and Chinese.
In Omuta City’s Mawatari Park, which
was the site of a camp for Koreans,
there stands the ‘Mawatari Memorial’,established in 1997 in remembrance of
Korean forced laborers. Omuta City’s
Citizen’s Guidebook of Omuta
Amagi Park also has a memorial to Korean victims. Moreover, the citizens of
Omuta have published guidebooks both in Japanese and Korean to enable people tolearn about the history of coal mining from the human rights perspective.
In Nagasaki Peace Park, there is a memorial to the Korean victims of the atomic bomb(1997), a memorial to the Chinese victims of the atomic bomb (2008) and a memorial to
the Allied prisoners of war (1981). An information board in the Sumiyoshi Tunnel placedby the Nagasaki City, explicitly indicates the history of forced mobilization of Koreans.
All of these were established owing to the strength and the demands of the victims andsupportive citizens.
In the on-site information on ‘the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, explanations should include these memorials and the activities of victims and local citizens, andprovide opportunities to learn on the history of forced labor.

4

A monument engraved with names of all the victims
Located in Yamaguchi, Ube, close to Nishikiwa beach, is a monument built in February
2013 by a Japanese civil group. It was established in order to commemorate 183 people
who were stuck and died from drowning in the tunnel at Zosei Coal Mine on February
3rd, 1942 in a flooding accident. Among the 183 victims, 136 were Koreans.
Along with all of the victims’ names, the following text has been engraved on the monument, in both Korean and Japanese: “Japan pursued a national policy that promoted
increased production of coal, and the Korean victims here were people who had losttheir land and property under Japanese colonial rule in Korea, and people brought hereby force. We pledge to reflect upon such history and strive with all our strength never toaccept an emergence of a heinous power that seeks to destroy another nation.”

Memorial monument to Victims at Zosei Coal Mine

 et’s overcome the crisis of history and justice! Acknowledge andLreveal the history of forced labor!

Memorial to the Chinese victims of the atomic bomb

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What shall we remember and inherit, and how? UNESCO aims for the realization ofhuman dignity, education for justice, freedom, and international peace through intellectual and mental connections among peoples, and the welfare common to all humanity.
Remembering the history of forced labor, as well as its victims, requires an international
cultural effort for peace and the restoration of human dignity.
By remembering and inheriting the history of forced mobilization and labor, we hopethat ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ will strengthen ‘the intellectual and moral
solidarity’ with the world citizens, and become a foundation for peace building in Asia.

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Appendix

Korea-Japan Joint NGO Statement of 5 July, 2017

Japan should record the history on forcedlaborers’ blood, sweat, and tears

On the current holding of the Krakow session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the like-minded NGOs of Korea and Japan make the present statement to express
concerns over the recent developments on the follow-up measures of the inscription on
the World Heritage List of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel,
Shipbuilding and Coal Mining. The Japanese government is scheduled to submit a reportoutlining progress with the various recommendations of the World Heritage Committeeby 1 December 2017. The government report is expected to include the question of ‘theinterpretative strategy’ on the Sites, and will be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its 42nd session in 2018.
These industrial sites had been put on the List by the World Heritage Committee on
5 July, 2015 at its 39th session in Bonn (Decision: 39 COM 8B.14). In this decision, theCommittee recommended also that Japan give consideration particularly to “[p] reparing an interpretive strategy for the presentation of the property, which gives particularemphasis to the way each of the sites contributes to Outstanding Universal Value andreflects one or more of the phases of industrialisation; and also allows an understandingof the full history of each site”(paragraph 4.g).
In the statement made after the adoption of the decision of the inscription, her Excellency Ms Kuni Sato, ambassador of Japan to UNESCO, said that “The Government ofJapan respects the ICOMOS recommendation that was made from technical and expert
perspectives. Especially, in developing the ‘interpretive strategy,’ Japan will sincerely
respond to the recommendation that the strategy allows ‘an understanding of the full
history of each site.’”. She further added that “More specifically, Japan is prepared totake measures that allow an understanding that there were a large number of Koreansand others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditionsin the 1940s at some of the sites during World War II, the Government of Japan also
implemented its policy of requisition.” Concrete steps were also suggested saying that
“Japan is prepared to incorporate appropriate measures into the interpretive strategy toremember the victims such as the establishment of information center” (the Summary
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Records, document WHC-15/39.COM/INF.19, p. 222).
Subsequently, Ms Koko Kato, who led to the inscription of the Sites, was appointed
to the Special Advisor to the Cabinet. The Japanese government also initiated ‘the firstinvestigation’ on ‘forced laborers’ mobilized in these sites during the war. Despite these
seemingly positive measures, however, there are other developments of negative impacts
on the World Heritage List related programme of Japan.
Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Shinzō Abe, emphasized ‘Great Japan’ in relation to theinscription of the Sites, saying that “Japan has become an industrial country throughintroducing western technology and nurturing people by means of its own strength” and“Japan has achieved industrialization in only 50 years by combining foreign technology
and domestic traditional technology”. From the very next day of the inscription decision,
the Cabinet members have made statements that “Japan do not recognize forced laborat the Sites”. These denial of the existence of forced labor and even national discrimination has also been repeatedly made by the Japanese right-wing press. This nationalistic
and revisionist perception of the Abe government is also alleged to be reflected in theguidelines for making Japanese history textbook which was announced this year.
The current situation in Japan shows that it is highly unlikely that the history of forcedlaborers will be included in the government program relating to the Sites. The said ‘technology’ has not been the only factor that led to the industrialization and development ofJapan. The modernization of Japan should also be read in the context of the history ofJapan’s aggression of Asia, including Korea, as well as the history of labor. There wereslave labors of Koreans, Chinese, the Allied prisoners of war and countless others.
The strong connection between peace and the World Heritage List is clear as can beseen in the preamble of the UNESCO Constitution, which states that “a peace based
exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not
be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of thepeoples of the world, and the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon
the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”. We do hope that the inscription of theSites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution would be an opportunity to strengthen ‘theintellectual and moral solidarity’ among Japan and Korea, and other people in Asia andfurther build peace in Asia.
This peace building will not be possible without recognizing human rights of victims.
They relentlessly fight for justice. Lawsuits have been brought for reparations against,
Mitsubishi, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, some of the corporations which
had operated in these Sites. The unending story of the victims’ sweat, tears, and blood91

should be heard in a comprehensive manner.
A sincere investigation by the Japanese government of the historical facts to ‘remember
the victims of force labor and prisoners labor’ in relation to the Sites will be the first stepin this direction. We strongly urge the Japanese government to implement sincerely the
UNESCO and ICOMOS recommendation to unveil ‘the full history’ of the Sites. As in
the process resulting in the recommendation, we will not cease our efforts in monitoring
whether appropriate measures are taken in order to reveal the history of forced laborers.
5 July, 2017
on the second anniversary of the inscription ofSites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining
on the UNESCO World Heritage List

Korean participants:

Citizens from Korea and Japan gathered around the Memorial monument to Victims at Zosei Coal Mine (March2015)

The Center for Historical Truth and Justice
Korean Committee of Anti-Yasukuni Joint Counteraction
Forum Truth & Justice
The Korean Council for Compensation for the Victims of WWII
The Past Liquidation Committee of MINBYUN - Lawyers for a Democratic Society
The Supporting Citizens of Volunteer Labor Corps(Teisintai) Victims.

Japanese participants:
The Truth-Finding Network for Forced Labor
The Supporters of Trial by the Military & Civilian personnel attached to the JapaneseImperial Army
The Supporters of Trial Nagoya Mitsubishi Female Volunteer Labor Corps(Teisintai)
Japan-Korea Joint Action for Legislation for Forced Labor Victims
The Supporters of Trial Japan Iron & Steel
No! HAPSA (NO! enshrinement with war criminals in the Yasukuni shrine
Victims and citizens from Korea and Japan for the comprehensive solution of the issue of forced mobilization(May 2017)92

93∷ About the Organizations∷ Provision of photographs and materials and other cooperation

Network for Fact Finding on Wartime Mobilization and Forced Labor- Network for Fact Finding on Wartime Mobilization and Forced Labor

Established in July 2005 with the participation of citizens from various parts of Japannationwide to support the ‘Commission on Verification and Support for the Victimsof Forced Mobilization under Japanese Colonialism’ in Korea. Activities include theinvestigation of victims’ remains and works in cooperation and solidarity with the
Korean Commission, demanding on the Japanese government to reveal and explain
the current situation of such issues and to disclose related information on such issues
as the deposit of unpaid wages and postal savings. Issued two statements at thetime of listing of the ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ as the World Heritage.

The Center for Historical Truth and Justice
Established in 1991 in succession to the spirit of the Commission for Special Investigation of Anti-National Acts which was dissolved abruptly by the pro-Japanese elements
in 1949, and the will of the late Mr. Lim Jong-kuk who devoted his life in the research of
the pro-Japanese problem. Activities include the research and explication of various
issues and tasks in the Korean modern history, the movement to set distorted history
aright through the settlement of the past between Korea and Japan, the publicationof “Who’s Who of the Pro-Japanese”, “Dictionary of the Organs of Colonial Government of Japanese Imperialism”, and other books, the investigation of victims andtheir families of forced mobilization, the support for their court cases, the publicationof their testimonies, the collection and archiving of related materials, the holding of
exhibitions, and other academic researches and practice movements. It also prepares- The Center for Historical Truth and Justice, the Korean Council for Compensation
for the Victims of WWII
- POW Research Association- Omuta Branch of the Fukuoka Liaison Association of the Japan-China Friendship
Association- The Committee for the Establishment of the Remembrance Monument to the Chinese
Victims of the Atomic Bombing in Urakami Prison Branch- The Group for the Support of the Trial of the Conscripted Workers of the Imperial
Steel Works- Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum

the opening of “Colonial History Museum” in Yongsan, Seoul.

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Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution and Forced Labor :Korea-Japan NGO Guidebook
Published on 28 November 2017
Published by The Center for Historical Truth and Justice & Network for Fact Finding on Wartime
Mobilization and Forced Labor

The Center for Historical Truth and Justice
zip-code 02462, Wangsan-ro 283, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea
TEL +82-2-969-0226 URI : https://www.minjok.or.kr

Network for Fact Finding on Wartime Mobilization and Forced Labor, Japan
zip-code 657-0054, 3 Chome−1, Yamadachō, Nada-ku, Kōbe-shi, Hyōgo-ken, Japan, Kobe
Student Youth Center
TEL +81-78-851-2760 URI : http://www.ksyc.jp/sinsou-net

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