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| 'I Killed My Mother': When the Japanese Army Forced Hundreds of Citizens to Commit Suicide |
Shigiaki Kanjo was 16 years old when hundreds of people in his town started committing suicide. At that time, he made a decision that changed the course of his life.
It was the period of World War II. Kanjo was a resident of the Ryoku Islands, where Japanese officials played a role in reinforcing the impression that American troops would brutalize and rape women if they invaded.
The authorities scared the people to such an extent that it would be better to end their own lives if faced with such a situation. The Japanese military even provided civilians with hand grenades for suicide in case of a possible attack.
This fear turned into reality when the American army landed on the island. Kanju saw a man from his village who killed his own family. Kanju thought about doing the same.
Kanju later recalled the time in a 1998 interview with Britain's Imperial War Museum, in which he said, "We felt that this was the only way we had." I killed my mother along with my elder brother. Then to a younger sister and younger brother.
This was the beginning of the forced suicides that continued during the Battle of Okinawa. This battle started on April 1, 1945, and played a major role in ending the war.
However, to fully understand this tragedy that happened 78 years ago, it is important to know its background.
'We all wanted to commit suicide
Okinawa is the largest island of the Ryukyu Islands, hundreds of kilometers away from Tokyo, the capital of Japan, which became part of Japan in 1879.
One of the bloodiest battles of World War II was fought on this island.
Historian Kirsten Ziomek says Okinawans believe the battle was different because the residents were not considered fully Japanese.
A few days after the attack on Kerama Island, where Kanjo lived, the Western Allies began an attempt to seize Okinawa from which they intended to launch a final attack on Japan. Japan was aware of the importance of this island.
Japan began to respond with kamikaze, or suicide attacks, through its air force, while hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers on the ground defended by hiding in caves.
It is believed that 100,000 Japanese soldiers, 12,000 American soldiers, and 100,000 civilians died in the 82-day battle, including hundreds of civilians who were forced to commit suicide.
Ziomek says that one of the reasons for the mass suicides was that they took place in a place where the Japanese army was present, such as in a cave on the island. According to him, in places where only civilians lived, the situation was different because here people thought it better to make arrests.
"The forced suicides happened because the Japanese soldiers were forcing them," Ziomek told BBC Mundo. What happened was very cruel.
There is no definitive data on how many people committed suicide on this Japanese island.
Japanese historian Hirofumi Hayashi estimates that about 559 people committed suicide on Kerama Island, out of a total of about 700 forced suicides.
Some experts believe that Japanese propaganda also played a role, portraying the Americans as an oppressor and depicting suicide as a noble act to escape the enemy.
However, the survivors on the island say that the Japanese soldiers were responsible for all this, and encouraged the suicide of civilians for fear of revealing secrets to the Americans.
On the other hand, being arrested was frowned upon in Japanese culture.
Among the survivors was Takejiro Nakamura, who saw his mother kill his sister with a rope.
In an interview given to the BBC in 2007, he said, "We all wanted to commit suicide because we believed in the Japanese army."
I blame the Japanese army. Today, my sister would have children and grandchildren.
Matsuyoko Oshiro also survived this time. He later said that a soldier gave him a grenade and told him that the Americans would rape and torture him if he did not use it to kill himself and his family.
She said that I wanted to die but I could not do it. When the Americans attacked, I escaped towards the mountains, but they did not harm us and let us go.
However, 11 members of his family obeyed the orders and committed suicide by consuming poison.
Effects
Testimonies about the tragedy in Japan emerged in 2007. A controversy arose this year when the Japanese government proposed that school textbooks contain lessons on the military's suicide orders.
Around 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the proposal.
Kanju was involved in these protests. He also testified about his experiences which was a breakthrough for him as it took him more than two decades to speak openly about this difficult period in his life. '
Kanju died last year at the age of 93.
The controversy underscored how sensitive the issue still remains to Okinawa residents.
It should be noted that after the defeat in World War II, Japan handed over the control of Okinawa to the United States until 1972. This island but the presence of the US military has also been a cause of conflict and protest.
One question that remains unanswered, however, is whether the civilian suicides on Okinawa were a factor in the US decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war. It should be finished soon.
Ziomek says that this had happened before in Saipan, where civilians had committed mass suicide for fear of arrest, and then in Okinawa when it happened, the United States realized that it was facing an unusual enemy. That will never stop.
He says that perhaps there was an explanation for dropping the atomic bomb. However, I am not sure that the atomic bomb would not have been used if there had not been mass suicides.