EAST IKEBUKURO CENTRAL PARK

On the proposal of Tajima Ryujun, who took on the role of chaplain at Sugamo after Hanayama, a movement began inside Sugamo to use the war criminals’ guilty pleas to save for posterity the final images and final words of over a thousand executed Japanese. In order to show the wretchedness of war and prevent the same tragedy from ever happening again, I thought it would be meaningful to pass down, in a single volume, the last words of the true victims of the lost war.

– Testaments for Posterity (1984)

A Testament for Posterity

By Nakamura Shogoro

I heard the first death sentences from the Yokohama Trials on the radio. The sentence was for Lieutenant Yuri Kei, who was head of the Omura Prisoner of War Camp. That broadcast was deeply distressing, and before I knew it tears came to my eyes at the thought of the sorrow and loneliness that the family would feel upon hearing even a fellow Japanese, in whose veins flow the same blood, denounce Yuri as a terrible criminal deserving of the ultimate punishment.

Something must be done. We Japanese must show that we are willing to offer sympathy for the war crimes prisoners. So I swore to myself then; and yet, being too faint of heart, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

Determined, I paid a visit to the atelier of Yokoe Yoshizumi, a leading sculptor of Buddhist statues and a worshipper of the Kannon Bodhisatva. I told him of my intentions, and asked him to make me statues of Kannon. It was late February when the finished statues made it into my hands. I gave these to Professor Hanayama, the chaplain at Sugamo Prison, so that he might give them to the families of the executed. I sought out other bereaved families myself, and brought along Kannon statues. For the bereaved families living far away, the only option was to mail out Kannon statues with the following note attached:

Through the guidance and support of the United States, as well as the reflection and efforts of every single Japanese, a measure of normalcy has at long last returned to the world. As all Japanese fervently wish that the great tragedy of war will not take place again, and desperately hope that such mistakes will not be repeated, it is the dead and bereaved who are most keenly in our thoughts – namely, those who fell victim to the misbegotten war and, in the tribunals that followed, took responsibility for it with their own bodies, as well as the families they left behind. It is perhaps terribly brazen of me, but I am sending Buddhist statues to bereaved families. In the course of my efforts to pray for the repose of the dead and the happiness of their families, I consulted with the chaplain of Sugamo Prison, Professor Hanayama Shinsho. He offered his approval, and inscribed the following words on the statues: “The wisdom of Amida is infinite / The mercy of Amida is infinite.” When I asked Yokoe Yoshizumi, a judge with the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, to make the statues of the Holy Kannon, he happily agreed, with tears in his eyes, to undertake the task immediately. I enclose one for you here…

As my meager efforts began to register with the families, it seems some retrieved my address (Nakayama, Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture) from someplace, as several letters began to arrive. Each was deeply moving, impossible to read without tears. They mourned the death of their husbands and sons, lamented the scorn of the world around them, and revealed a resolve to live life to the fullest, as their dead would have wanted them to. There was even one among them who came all the way out to my house in Nakayama. From then on, I was driven to further good deeds by their guidance. The gratitude of these people became a source of encouragement for me, and, for five or six years, I continued sending one Kannon statue after another to those sent to death. As a result, I became acquainted with war crimes prisoners serving time in Sugamo, and often counseled them on various matters. On the outside many concerned people started signature drives for remembering the executed. The women of the Japan Red Cross Society worked tirelessly too. Bit by bit our movement began to bear fruit, until we finally gained the ability to launch even bigger projects. Sympathy for the war crimes prisoners was growing in the wider society.

On the proposal of Tajima Ryujun, who took on the role of chaplain at Sugamo after Hanayama, a movement began inside Sugamo to use the war criminals’ guilty pleas to save for posterity the final images and final words of over a thousand executed Japanese. In order to show the wretchedness of war and prevent the same tragedy from ever happening again, I thought it would be meaningful to pass down, in a single volume, the last words of the true victims of the lost war.

Our search for testaments left no stone unturned. Surprisingly, we were able to collect so many testaments because those who’d made peace with their death sentences desperately used every means to get word to their families. As we searched high and low for families of the executed, we found that most had mementos from their dead relative, which they gladly provided to us. One prisoner left their last testament to an Indonesian. It was said to have been hidden in the sole of his shoe, which was tucked away beneath the floor under the bucket toilet. Another sewed his last words into the band of his underpants so that they would make it into his family’s hands. Those without writing instruments bit into their fingers and, using the fresh blood, inscribed their last words into their shirts…