2015年CRI Japanese Couple Exposes Scars of Nanjing Massacre on Stage（在线收听）

Japanese Couple Exposes Scars of Nanjing Massacre on Stage

Sixty-nine-year-old Japanese artist Kazuko Yokoi knows the atrocity in Nanjing in 1937 from the victims and her own family. 

She is now bringing a one-woman show on stage called The Eyes Hold the Truth.

"I was sent out to work when I was 14. One day, a Japanese police officer came in and said 'I know a good job that can make you a lot of money. Do you want to come?' I was 17 back then. I saw at least 10 girls like me waiting at the train station. The man took us to Pyongyang, left us to a military policeman and left. We were tricked! By the time we knew,it was already too late. 'We will kill you if you run!' the man shouted. We got off the train at Pukou Station in Nanjing, China. We were loaded onto a truck and taken to a military brothel called Kinsui House. The place was set for a Japanese army post nearby."

Yokoi plays a Korean teenage girl who was forced by the Japanese military to be a sex slave and witnessed the massacre in Nanjing.

With the help of simple props and stage lights, the actress is trying to let the history speak for itself.

Yokoi plays three different sex slaves or so-called comfort women in the play. Each of the characters reflects what they saw during the mass killing and rape from different perspectives.

Her husband Yoshiji Watanabe is the director and writer of the play. His father was an imperial army officer and a Class-C war criminal.

Watanabe says the play is inspired by his family tragedy.

"My father is guilty. After all the crimes he did during the Second World War, he couldn't be happy anymore. Family violence was often the case through my childhood and never stopped. When I was 37, my mother hung herself. That thing struck me. It also became the main reason for me to begin creating this series of war-time themed stage works. I believe if we don't atone for our previous generation's crime, we won't be happy anymore."

The couple says it is very worrisome that some Japanese politicians are still not able to face up to that part of history, referring to the country's current right-leaning politics.

"If Japan keeps going like this, it will lose its neighbor China and will be isolated in this world."

"I think it is necessary to do what we are doing with pride because I love my country deeply."

That is exactly what people from both countries have been doing - helping people know the truth and making sure it will never happen again.