On the outer sea 15 kilometers away from Nagasaki City, Japan, there is an area of only 0.06 square kilometers of small islands, because this small island looks like a warship, so it is also called Gunkanjima Island, just above this small island, but attracted the attention of the Japanese military giant Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Company began to build Japan's largest concrete building here, built a seven-storey apartment building, Gunkanjima was bustling 50 years ago, but now it has become an empty uninhabited island, what happened during the period?
On this small island, there are very rich coal resources, and for Japan during World War II, the resources here can undoubtedly solve their logistical shortage problems, Mitsubishi Corporation, with the help of the Japanese government, began to reclaim these small islands and build seawalls, in just a few years the area of this small island has been tripled. All the problems have been solved, so it is time to start mining the coal resources of Gunkanjima Island, and the first question is ushered in, where do they go to get enough personnel to help them mine coal?
The Japanese government did not hesitate to extend its claws to the laborers of China and South Korea, and soon more than 5,000 Chinese and Korean laborers were transported to Gunkanjima Island to do unpaid labor, they needed to work more than 12 hours a day, there was no rest time and wages, all the remuneration was just water and food that could be filled with stomachs, and these water and food were still eaten by the Mitsubishi employees, and no matter what kind of situation they faced at that time, even if they were hungry or sick, they had to be forced to work, if there was a slight slackness in the work , you will be beaten.
In addition to physical and mental destruction, they also have to face various dangers at work, according to the survivors of The Island of Warships, they worked at extremely high temperatures, did not have any mining equipment, only a pickaxe, and were not allowed to wear any clothes, the workers did not have any safety measures in the working environment, a mine collapse left 200 people buried in the mine, and Mitsubishi did not do any rescue operations.
What is even more infuriating is that the living environment of the workers is also very bad, many times, a bed needs more than a dozen people to sleep together, and the bed surface is full of lice and mosquitoes, and as the Japanese continue to retreat from the front line, they also make their demand for coal mine resources more desperate, and they do not even have the most basic rest time every day.
After the end of World War II, the laborers on Gunkanjima Island were repatriated, but this history was not published, and Mitsubishi and the Japanese government tried everything to publicize this hell on earth into a new world, they destroyed all the evidence before, and built more buildings, claiming that the people who came to work on it at that time were treated very well, in order to make their own citizens and the outside world believe this statement, Japan gathered a large number of laborers at home to come to Gunkanjima island for labor activities.
The difference is that this time they were provided with high salaries, and various shops and cinema entertainment measures were built on Gunkanjima Island. Subsequent Japanese coal miners who came to work on Gunkanjima Island can also bring their families together, men work on the island during the day, women do housework at home, children study in schools on Gunkanjima Island, or play on the street, the miners' conditions at this time and the miners' conditions at that time are completely different, security measures are in place, high-quality diet is provided every day, and the accommodation environment is the most upscale apartment building. According to media reports, children born on Managaha Island in 1960 had a very happy childhood, but when the children frolicked in the square, they would never know that this place was once a hell for countless people.
No dark cloud in the world can cover the sun, and any truth will be exposed to the public in the sun. In 2006, the Japanese government applied to the United Nations for the inclusion of Gunkanjima as part of Japan's industrial heritage, south Korea and China expressed strong opposition, and asked the United Nations to conduct a strict investigation of Gunkanjima, demanding that Japan must give Gunkanjima a complete history, rather than a false so-called heritage, under many pressures, Japan finally admitted all its actions in Gunkanjima during World War II.
Now Japan has putaijima as a tourist attraction, although Japan acknowledges the history of abuse of labor, but on the island's introduction board, Japan only mentions the abuse of Korean laborers in the dark history, and does not mention the abuse of Chinese laborers, and the relevant historical records we see now, although short hundreds of words, are the dark lives of countless people.
We never know how dark they once lived here, or how terrible humanity is hidden behind the glory of Managaha Island, we only know that forgetting history means betrayal.