FOUNDATION OF JAPANESE HONORARY DEBTS
NGO, STATUS ROSTER
His Excellency Shinzo ABE
Prime Minister of Japan
The Hague, 11 February 2014
Petition: 231
Subject: What it means to know your past!
Excellency,
We, children then but now in our eighties and seventies, had to endure the evil of the Japanese military occupation of Dutch East Indies during World War Two. We know and painfully feel our past. We know how it was to endure hunger, maltreatment, enslavement and to be forced to see the humiliation of our mothers, sisters and brothers. We know how it feels not knowing what happened to our fathers,kept in separate captivity. It cannot be a surprise to you that we do not respect and cannot forgive those who gave the orders to maltreat us and ultimately the order to kill us all in order to hide the war crimes of the Japanese military.
Prime Minister,
We cannot understand that the children and grandchildren of those who issued the orders for war crimes are not ashamed of their parents. We cannot understand that these same people are being glorified and that their war crimes are honored. It is sickening to deny their evil past and have no compassion for those who suffered so badly. There is ample proof of the direct involvement by the Japanese military in coercing women into sexual slavery, which did untold emotional and physical damage. There is ample proof that Japanese military ignored behavioral conventions, were instructed to maltreat us all and conduct war crimes on a large scale. There is also concrete proof that the Japanese military were instructed at the end of the war to kill all captives to hide the war crimes which they knew would be uncovered.
Prime Minister,
The Japanese leaders of the war period lost all respect for humanity. The present leaders must accept that and must not try to rewrite history. There is and there will never be honor in glorifying the Japanese military behavior during World War Two. It would be honorable for the present leaders of Japan to admit it and not to glorify the past. The good people of Japan must be informed about the past. We believe that they will appreciate honesty, and honor and accept the moral commitment stemming from art. 14 (a) of the San Francisco Peace Treaty: "It is recognized that Japan should pay reparations for the damage and sufferings caused by it during the war." Educate the people of Japan and communicate to them the truth. Stop ignoring the past and above all be honest in knowing your past.
We would welcome an acknowledgement of the receipt of this petition by you personally.
On behalf of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts,
J.F. van Wagtendonk
President
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Just received by e-mail this no.231 petition which was handed over to the Japanese Embassy in The Hague. Every second Tuesday of the month a demonstration takes place and so far 231 petitions have been presented to the Prime Minister's of Japan.
I wonder does Japan really care about the past? Do they really like to make it right? I really admire the people who every month travel some times for two hours by train to be able to attend this demonstration in The Hague. One such person is a lady I know very well and we ( my mother and I her sister and two children) had been in the same Japanese prison camp during the war. She is now 87 years young, she and her mother and two sisters were like us in Banjoebiroe 10.on the island of Java, Indonesia (formerly called The Dutch East Indies) Her father was murdered by the Kempetai, my father died a horrible death, building a railroad line through the jungle of Thailand as a Japanese POW slave laborer. The infamous Birma railroad line, where thousands died, worked, starved and beaten to death by the Japanese military.And she like me would like to live to hear a sincere apology and remorse for the death of so many innocent people from the Japanese government.But it seems that this government doesn't give a damn about their past.Japan fought a most ruthless war, leading thousands and thousands to die a grisly death in the name of the Emperor of Japan, of greed and secrecy.The emperor of Japan their "God" appointed his brother Prins Yasuhito Chichibu to head a secret organization called "Kin no Yuri"("Golden Lily) of gangsters, who plundered and looted and killed their own people to stash away the plundered treasure. What happened to the plundered treasure after 1945, it's really remarkable how Japan recovered so quickly after the war.Japan the Gold Warriors.Much of the stolen wealth was taken to Japan, some to pay for the war, but most to slate the greed of Japan's elite. The Emperor Hirohito and his brother Chichibu should have been recorded as the world's most ruthless and avaricious bandit's of all time. Instead they lived a pampered life, while the real victims of this terrible war lived the rest of their lives with trauma's and nightmares to deal with.Trying to make a living again, with nobody to help them.
Read the book from Sterling and Peggy Seagrave. "America's secret Recovery of "Yamashita's Gold".
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| Here we are with Elizabeth van Kampen at the demonstration. |
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| After the petition is handed over we sing hymns. |
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| Street view from Hotel Bel Air in The Hague. |
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| Elizabeth enjoying her loempia. |
One such person who knew how breakable our memory is... was Eisenhower. General Eisenhower warned us.
It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.
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| German girl overcome by grief of what she saw. |
He did this because he said in words of this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened"
Japan likes to rewrite history and the UK debated whether to remove the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed yet.....However, this is frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.
It is now more than 65 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. In memory of the 6 millions Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated" while the German people looked the other way!
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| Victims of the holocaust. |
Now more than ever, with Iran, amongst other, claiming the holocaust to be ' a myth ', it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets!! Like Japan is still denying their atrocities committed during World War Two.Japan just like their partners in crime( Germany and Italy), during World War Two, committed the same atrocities on the other side of the globe and still deny that it happened.Japan still denies that their military did nothing wrong to innocent women, children and civilians.What's wrong with these people? Are they such good liars?
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The holocaust on the other side of the Globe
It's a shame that no photographs exist that show the atrocities in these concentration camps where Dutch women and children were starved,beaten, raped, experimented on, killed and humiliated.It took more than five weeks after the end of the war for the British troops to arrive and secure the camps. In the meantime the Japanese had destroyed all evidence.They even handed out the red cross food packages which they had denied us all those years.
During the war the Japanese guards did not allow any persons from out side these camps to come even close to these fences. If some body got caught being to close near these fences they would receive a severe beatings, even children were not immune from this they would be punished or their mothers.
These photographs were taken by Lady Mountbatten, the wife of Lord Louise Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of South-East-Asia.
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| This is how they found the men weeks after the war was over. |
With the Japanese guards vanished and allied troops or relief organizations yet to be on the scene, Banjoebiroe 10 was in a disorganized transition, although much better than under the Japanese. We were not fully free yet. Another danger was luring outside the camps. We were unsure what to do, where to go. Most of the women were still to weak and many were sick, like my mother.It took till the end of November 1945, when we finally were transported to safer places by truck.
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| Are we going to see our daddy again? |
This is what makes me so mad, when I think about that time. While we had nothing to back too, our houses plundered by the Japanese, no money, no father waiting for us, the Japanese government were laying in their own beds, between crispy clean sheets and plenty of food to eat.The emperor of Japan with their government got away with murder and lived the rest of their lives a pampered life with no guilt feelings and no remorse for all the atrocities they inflicted on innocent women and children.Our lives were shattered!
The perpetrators got away. It's very painful to think about our past. How brave our mothers were and what they endured. The Japanese military were evil and all in the name of the emperor Hirohito.
All this evil man could do was riding around on his white horse and order the Japanese military to do his dirty work..Steal, plunder, loot and kill every body who stands in your way.
We would really like to hear from this government of Japan that they feel remorse and sorry about their past, but instead you Mr. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, you go and mourn ,honor, and glorify the behavior of your military from the past. They are nothing but war criminals. Shame on you!
Current Japanese may have been transformed and became truly peace-loving people. However, Japan has been a villain in East Asian history and Japan has failed to convince her neighbors and the world that they became a good neighbor. This mistrust is the root cause of current animosity in East Asia.
During the last 500 years, there were three major wars in East Asia.Three of these wars were initiated by Japan which tried to conquer Korea and China.
Japan refuses to recognize its depraved history of imperialist aggression, expansion and colonial domination.
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| Are we really leaving this hell! |
Well, Thea, I have to hand it to you and your group: You don't ever give up.
ReplyDeleteIrony of all ironies, some 300 Japanese legislators have sent a petition to the City of Glendale, CA demanding the removal of a statue honoring Comfort Women. It is a duplicate of a statue installed (you have to love this) in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea.
Maybe your group should arrange to exchange petitions with this group.
I am quoting in my Comment that follows an article written by Kirk Spitzer of the Tokyo office of Time World and published on February 25, 2014. This article also mentions that our dear friend, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has stated that the Japanese government intends to review the landmark 1993 government statement that apologized and admitted responsibility for operating the so-called comfort-women system during the war. This is one of the few acknowledgements by the Japanese government of the atrocities committed by the Japanese during the period before and during WW2. Please take note that I did not say apologies.
Hi Leo,
DeleteDo you remember something about the Kempetai arriving at Moentilan, and picked out suitable young women and girls. These women were taken to the church on the property of the camp. My mother told me that the women were getting very angry and protested.When the Kempetai was trying to take these young women and girls with them the the protesting mothers and women hurled clumps of dirt and stones at the Japanes soldiers. The Japanese slashed with their swords at us and of course we were no match; she told me. But she said we try to fight. She did not tell me why they took these girls, at the time when she told me about this story I had no idea that she meant that these young girls and women were going to be used for prostitution and taken to brothels.She thought it was very amusing that they threw these clumps of dirt and stones. You should have seen these little yellow men with these huge swords, they looked so ridiculous; she said.Can you remember this incident?
And yes I found out only in 2008 from my mothers youngest sister that my mother and her sister were raped in that same church on the property of this Monarchy were we were held for almost 3 years.She had promised never to talk about it. But when I wrote my book, she thought that I should know. That's where the title of my book came from; " I thought you should know". So you understand my anger, that this Japanese government has the nerve to say that these women and girls went willingly. It makes my blood boil. I lost my father working as a slave on the infamous rail road, his friend survived and told my mother all the atrocities they had to endure, Wim Kan the famous cabaret performer was in the same camp on the rail road as my father and his friend.He wrote a book and left the truth behind.His wife Corrie Vonk was in Bandoeng in a camp. They made a verse when Hirohito came to The Netherlands in 1971. When you Google Wim Kan you can see the video.I hope Japan will realize that this generation and the next generation will never give up. Because of their government the younger generation is getting bullied which is very sad and that's what we do not like to see and hear.But the longer Japan is ignoring this problem the worse it will get.We have been silenced long enough, and this generation doesn't take it anymore. We are living today with the sad memories of our mothers who had to deal with this horrible ordeal the rest of their lives.They are resting in peace now, but we will not rest until Japan takes the blame and removes the shame.
Well, I misspelled my own URL by leaving the "h" out of nothing (making it "noting"). I apologize.
Deletewww.leokeukens.com will get you there also.
Yes, I clearly remember that they came in and selected young women to be comfort women/sex slaves and dragged them through the gate out of the camp to work in brothels serving the Japanese army. I have mentioned this incident in a blog on my web site (http://leokeukens.com/will-they-ever-learn-comfort-women-sex-slaves) and will extensively cover it in my book.
DeleteJapan is more than ignoring this issue, Japan is continuing to cover it up to the extent that the present younger generation does not have the faintest idea and, does absolutely not want to hear about it even if they get an inkling of it.
THIS IS THE TIME WORLD ARTICLE:
ReplyDeleteJAPAN'S LAWMAKERS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST "COMFORT WOMEN" MEMORIALS
A memorial in the California city of Glendale honoring women in Asia forced to work as sex slaves by the Japanese military in World War II provoked a conservative backlash in Tokyo
TIME WORLD
Kirk Spitzer /Tokyo Feb. 25, 201
Japanese conservatives are taking the offensive in the battle over World War II sex slaves — and it seems likely to do them more harm than good.
Some 300 legislators from around Japan have sent a petition to the city of Glendale, Calif., demanding the removal of a statue honoring women who were forced or coerced into working in brothels serving the Japanese military during World War II.
Supporters of the memorials say as many as 200,000 women from Korea and other Asian countries were forced to work as so-called comfort women. The Glendale memorial was built largely at the request of the area’s large Korean-American community. It is a duplicate of a statue installed outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul — one of many irritants to Japan–South Korea relations.
At a Tokyo press conference Tuesday (February 25, 2014), opponents said the memorial spread “false propaganda” and has resulted in bullying, harassment and discrimination against Japanese residents in the Glendale area. “Japanese schoolchildren are suffering from bullying by Koreans. Some of them told us they feel anxiety because they must hide being Japanese. Korean people are presenting this as a human-rights issue, but this can only lead to a new conflict of racial discrimination,” said Yoshiko Matsuura, a Tokyo-area assemblywoman and representative of a conservative group called the Japan Coalition of Legislators Against Fabricated History.
The press conference appeared to be part of a concerted campaign to push back against comfort-women charges. Japanese activists in California filed suit in federal court last week demanding the U.S. government order the city of Glendale to remove the statue, situated in a public park. Earlier this week, a spokesman for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Japanese government would review a landmark 1993 government statement that apologized and admitted responsibility for operating the so-called comfort-women system during the war. Any change to that statement is certain to further damage relations with South Korea and China, already at a low point over territorial claims and historical disputes.
Taking the fight over comfort women to the U.S. is a “huge mistake,” says Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based think tank.
“Clearly the American government is displeased by the notion that the Japanese are taking this argument to our shores and making it an American domestic political battle. It’s something they should settle themselves,” said Glosserman.
The issue already is causing controversy. A school in Higashiosaka, Glendale’s sister city in Japan, cancelled a student-exchange program in December in protest over the memorial. An online petition at the White House website in support of removing the Glendale statue has received 127,000 signatures; a petition in support of keeping it has attracted 106,000 signatures.
The memorial was installed in a public park in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, in July 2013. It features a bronze statue of a young Korean woman sitting next to an empty chair. A stone plaque is etched, jarringly, with the title “I Was a Sex Slave of the Japanese Military.” A similar memorial has been built in New Jersey, which Japanese diplomats and legislators also requested to be removed.
According to the lawsuit filed last week, installing the statue “exceeds the power of Glendale, infringes upon the federal government’s power to exclusively conduct the foreign affairs of the United States and violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
SORRY - THE ARTICLE HAS TO BE BROKEN INTO 2 SEGMENTS
SEGMENT 2 WILL FOLLOW IMMEDIATELY
Well, I misspelled my own URL by leaving the "h" out of nothing (making it "noting"). I apologize.
Deletewww.leokeukens.com will get you there also.
SEGMENT 2
ReplyDeleteTIME WORLD
Kirk Spitzer /Tokyo Feb. 25, 201
Matsuura, who traveled to Glendale to deliver a copy of the petition to local officials last month, says the 1993 apology is based on unreliable and unverified testimony. She accused South Korea of exporting the issue to the U.S.
“We were shocked by a statue of a comfort girl in America, a third country, not in Korea. We have a responsibility to protest,” Matsuura said through an interpreter. A member of her husband’s family served in the Japanese Imperial Army during the war and was taken prisoner in Siberia, Matsuura said.
The Obama Administration has become increasingly frustrated with the rightward tilt of Japan’s leadership. The U.S. State Department said it was “disappointed” with Abe’s visit in December to the Yasukuni Shrine, which glorifies Japan’s role in World War II.
Weeks later, it labeled as “preposterous” public statements by an Abe appointee to the board of the national broadcaster, NHK, that the U.S. had fabricated war-crimes charges against Japan’s wartime leaders to cancel out America’s own war crimes, which he said include the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the firebombings of Tokyo.
Glosserman says Japanese efforts to rewrite wartime history are damaging the interests of both countries. “The United States wants Japan to be a more respected and more effective contributor to regional security, and to play a larger role in the region. And all that this historical revisionism does is undermine that,” he says.
I respect the mother Thea
ReplyDeletein Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
I am a man from West Java Indonesia, I was the third generation of the Indonesian revolution, my grandfather was a man who had three reign (Dutch, Japanese and Indonesian). My grandfather was my lot to know about the sad true story of the past during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia, about romusha, heiho, Seinendan, "comfort women" as our grandmothers and the natural course of the camp is dark as your mother, your brother and you experienced.
in essence, we are very concerned with what has happened in the land of our ancestors. we loved peace and brotherhood. keep fighting my brother, our prayers accompany your struggle.
we now stands on land that has been witness to all the evil that humans Japanese soldiers did to his people besides me hope that our land can be heaven again.
respectful and fraternal greetings
Thank you so much for reading my blog. The past should never be forgotten. I was born in Bandung, Java, Indonesia where my parents were very happy. My mother always told me that it was paradise on earth with many, many peaceful friendly people. She and my father had many friends, whom she never heard from after the war. They all died in that terrible conflict with Japan. I received some nice pictures from the house I was born. A very nice Indonesian young man went out of his way to send these to me.He lives in Bandoeng. I told him that I was born in a street named Tjikoerailaan. This name was changed in Jalan Cikuray. The house was still there and people are living there.I am still e-mailing with this nice young man, he calls us Oma and Opa.He is a student and had read my blog.I hope a day will come that we can live in peace. There is so much evil in the world, so much greed. The world has still not learned from the past. There will never be a winner only sinners.Innocent people suffer. Life is so beautiful and so short.
ReplyDeleteAll the best. I wish you lots of happiness.
Thea