Wounds and Closure

Marius van Nooten

Dutch child slave labor and civilian internee in Java

For days on end I keep thinking, how can I tell my fellow listeners my everlasting painful experience at age 11, during the Second World War. Being a child survivor, it is not an easy task to talk about past experience.

I was a child prisoner and slave labourer of Imperial Japanese military concentration camps for boys in the former Dutch East Indies which is now Indonesia. I endured starving and severe beatings at the hands of the infamous Japanese secret police. I was forced to work in the hospital puncturing the bloated bodies of dead beri-beri patients, emptying spit cans of TB patients and helping to chisel away the gold from teeth of dead patients. In short I was child slave laboror number 12234 , a victim survivor of the Second World War in Southeast Asia region that endured cruel evil enslavement by psychopath and war criminal Emperor Hirohito of Japan and his criminal Imperial military regime that still haunts in my nightmares and flashbacks today. My wounds are still not healed

The atomic bombs were developed towards the end of the Second World War by Japan and the United States of America and tried out on fishing vessels by Japan and in the desert by the U.S.A. Fifty and eight years ago, two atomic bombs dropped on Japan killed many lives of the aggressor and enemy military prisoners captured by the Imperial Japanese military regime, but saved my life as an “innocent child!” and could not have come sooner!

I seek justice 52 years and counting after Treaty of Peace shut me out: It is most “unfair” that the treaty rehabilitated Japan's economy on the “backs of wartime victim survivors!” like me! Being a victim of war crimes as a child deserves better than this! You must remember that the victim survivors of Southeast Asia and Pacific region that were babies and children at that time including me “paid a very high price for peace and freedom!" The “freedom you enjoy today!”

“Closure!” What closure? I cannot forgive and forget. I do not accept personal apologies from the Japanese Emperor nor from the Japanese (then and now) Prime Ministers, but will accept an apology from the Japanese Diet and Japanese citizens through legislation, however when legislation for a formal apology was introduced into the Japanese Parliament to be signed into law, the legislation failed, therefore no formal apology has been made!

However, if Japan apologizes and pays restitution, then I, the victim survivor can reconcile and trust is restored. In the mean time, and I hope you will understand my point of view on the situation, that I do not buy any Japanese products or accept Japanese gifts for the Japanese injustice that still prevails!

Today I am still searching for the quest for inner peace and peace that came too late for 35 Million slaughtered innocent human beings.

Every year I mourn at the White Rook Cenotaph in White Rock, British Columbia, Canada, on August 15, the day that Japan unconditionally surrendered in 1945, while some high Japanese officials of the Japanese government pray and pay tribute at Shinto Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine to the secretly enshrined more than 1000 convicted war criminals and a handful of Class “A” war criminals convicted by the Allied court. These war criminals are regarded not just as heroes but as deities, not only deserving respect but worshipped and that bothers me. Can you imagine the uproar among Canadian citizens if high German officials of the German government pray and pay tribute to German war criminals like Hitler etcetra etcetra ?

“Closure!” What closure ? Give me a break!

I wrote to the United Nations Secretary-General asking the world community to “reject" Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council until it has fulfilled its international “legal and moral” obligations to the world, the 35 million slaughtered innocent babies, children, women and men, the victims of the Pacific and Southeast Asia region, namely, the Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Dutch, Canadians, British, Australians, Americans and New Zealanders.

“NO!” for Japan in regards to a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.