The Japanese refugees are housed in a school building a few blocks from us. They are free to move around but very few dare to venture out. The Korean People's Militia guard the Japanese per agreement with Gen. Abe, but the Militia has no jurisdiction over the Soviets. During the night, some Russians openly walk past the Korean guards and rape the women - young and old. All Japanese men shave their head (their custom during WW2) and so the Russians feel around for people with hair. Soon the Japanese women and children shave their head. It is also good for controlling head lice.
Gen. Abe had stockpiled six months' provisions for his people. But the Russians have confiscated the stockpile for their own use. It is painful and sad to watch Japanese men (former teachers, neighbors, medical doctors, etc.) going around the Korean neighborhood begging for menial jobs. Most of us do our best to help, but some Koreans throw rocks at the poor Japanese. Countless Japanese die of starvation and disease.
The Soviets cart off everything they can lay their hands on. They take all Japanese properties - factories, house furniture's, food stocks, supplies, vehicles - anything not tied to the earth is loaded on to trains headed to Siberia. They take the 6-month rice stock Gen. Abe gave to the Korean People's Committee. Korean students demonstrate against the Russians in Hamhung and Sinyiju - to no avail. Every day, train loads of our properties and food stocks leave for Russia and there is not a single thing we can do to prevent it. The communists say that it is all legal - the Russians are collecting their war reparations. Everything we have belongs to the Japanese - according to the Russians; Koreans own nothing.
Stalin formed the 25th Division of the Red Army with prison inmates and other scum of the Soviet nation. The soldiers of the 25th were dumped onto Korea ill-trained and poorly equipped. Many of them did not have proper uniforms and lived off the land. The Red officers looked the other way when their soldiers raped Korean and Japanese women and stole properties.
Photo: Japanese refugees being guarded by US soldiers in Manchuria
May 1946 - Across from our house is a small meadow, full of wild flowers and trees. Children used to play hide and seek in the meadow. But no more. It is turned into a ghostly graveyard for the Japanese refugees. Deep trenches are dug all over the meadow. Each trench is good for 50 to 60 bodies. All day long masked Japanese men, who are walking skeletons themselves, trudge up the hill carrying dead bodies. Fresh bodies are dumped into a trench and then covered with a layer of lime in order to discourage animals from eating the bodies and also to disinfect the corpses.
As soon as a trench is filled and covered with earth, some of our neighbors plant corn and sun flowers - it is one step short of cannibalism. When you are starving, you don't ask too many questions. When the darkness falls, one sees flickers of light in the meadow. Some people say that they are the ghosts of the dead; others say that they are grave robbers are stripping the dead of their last possessions; my neighbor thinks that it's the lepers feasting on the bodies. There are all sorts of horror stories (all made up, I am sure) about the Japanese dead in the meadow.
My science teacher tells me that the light flickers are due to potassium in bones reacting with the elements - a pure and simple chemical reaction. But I believe some of the flickers do come from lepers eating the rotting hearts of the Japanese dead. My neighbor claims that this is how lepers can cure their disease - sounds reasonable to me. He adds that young kid's living hearts work better for the cure and warns me not to go anywhere near the tunnel where the lepers live. I don't go out alone at night any more or go swimming by myself.
The Japanese are not the only ones dying of hunger and disease. The Soviet troops live off the land and we have not much left to eat. There is shortage of everything: the Russians occupy basically all Japanese houses and buildings plus many Korean houses as well; hardly any medical services or medicine; clothing, fire woods, drinking water, etc. Indeed, the disease and famine are killing more Koreans than all of the Koreans killed during the Japanese occupation.
The Russians go after Korean women as well. The People's Militia are helpless. The best the Militia can do is to contact a Russian military police that may or may not intervene. One of my neighbors is raped by a Russian. The rumor has it that the Russian rapist got 'stuck' to the poor woman and the Militia had to carry them both in an ox-cart to a hospital for separation. I guess a Russian penis works just like a dog's .
At last, the Japanese refugees are loaded onto a train. They are taken to Hungnam and from there, shipped to Japan. Thus ends the Japanese occupation of Korea.
August - Pyongyang: Kim Ilsung merges the New People's Party and the Communist Party into a new party - the North Korean Workers' Party. He becomes its Vice Chairman; the famed novelist, Kim Tu Bong is the chairman. Students demo against the Russian occupations in Hamhung and Sinyiju. The Russian troops shoot several student demonstrators. My brother Ung Sik is one of the student leaders in Hamhung. The Russians arrest the student leaders and turn them over to the Korean People's Militia, but the Militia let them go.
