언론사

Facing the History

Yoon Cheong-Ok, Dept. of Library and Information Science

I agree with the saying that there will be no future for a nation which forgets its past or the people who forget their history. While most people tried not to forget the pains and errors from our history, some people distorted and even glorified what they did in the past. Often talking about what happened in Korea, I am stunned to see what Japan has done to justify their cruelty and cover up their war crimes in the world history, even using children’s books.

There is a union catalog called WorldCat, not well known for common people. As of February 2021, WorldCat has about 5 billion bibliographic records about books and other materials held by more than 1,560 public libraries, university libraries, and school libraries in 105 countries around the world. People can search which library has what books.

A children’s book titled Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and written by Eleanor Coerr, a Canadian writer, is held by 2,165 libraries in the U.S. It is a story about a girl named Sadako "hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia" in Hiroshima.

She "races against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person will become healthy." Although the writer is not Japanese, this book is frequently cited to describe Japanese people, especially children, as innocent victims of atomic bombs during the Second World War. With these types of books, Japan tried to cover up their monstrous wrongdoing against people in other countries, including Korea and China.

Another children’s book titled So Far from the Bamboo Grove and written by Kawashima Watkins, a Japanese-American, is held in 793 libraries and included in the required reading list for school children in several states in the U.S. This book claims a biographical story of "honest and good-natured" Japanese people, leaving Korea after their defeat, who were raped and attacked by many "cruel and vicious" Koreans. One American reader in LibraryThing.com, one of the biggest book-readers communities online, even compared a heroine from this book with Anne Frank.

During the Second World War started by Japan, so many people in Korea, China and other countries were injured and lost their lives and properties. But Japan has never apologized for their war crimes and often claimed to be the victims after the defeat. To the children and youth in other countries without much knowledge of other cultures and history, they spread lies about themselves or partial truths at most, by means of books. How long should we stand for their sins against the world history?