D04, Eriko Shinozaki ‘91, Grandmother, 1920, Karafuto, Hokkaidō, Tōkyō
Q: Hello, Grandma, can I interview you about your life during World War II for my homework assignment?
A: Sure, but I was not in Japan during the war.
Q: Were you in Karafuto [the southern half of Sakhalin island, under Japanese rule from 1905 to 1945]?
A: Yes, I was there from August 1944 until the end of the war. Before that, I had lived in Toyama and Takamatsu in Kagawa. The war ended on August 15, 1945, and then my mother, my uncle, and my grandmother left Karafuto on August 25, 1945. But I really don’t know what to talk about!
Q: Where in Karafuto did you live?
A: In Toyohara [now Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk], but then the war with the Soviet Union began. At least we had no air raids or attacks by planes.
Q: Were there only Japanese living in Karafuto then?
A: Yes. When the war ended, the Soviet Red Army suddenly invaded and took over Karafuto without any fighting. At the same time, they invaded northern Korea and Manchuria. They claimed that these were territories that Japan had taken during the Russo-Japanese War. So many territories changed control. Countries like the Soviet Union got bigger by taking over weaker countries.
Q: What kind of a place was Toyohara?
A: It was really inaka (rustic). It was full of Japanese. Your grandfather worked for the Japanese government, so we did not have any trouble. Your mother was eight years old then, and your uncle was about two and a half. Karafuto had many trees, so there was a paper factory run by the Ōji Seishi paper mill. There were logs everywhere for firewood, so we could always keep warm. Also there was a lot of coal, anywhere you dug. Coal was available for a very low price: a truckfull would only cost ten yen, which is about 1000 yen now. Also you could catch fish from the sea surrounding the island. That’s why the Soviet Union will never give Karafuto back to Japan.
Q: How did you return from Karafuto?
A: We went on a cargo ship, with about two thousand people on board, from Ōtomari port in Karafuto [now Korsakov] to Wakkanai at the northern tip of Hokkaidō. From there we took a train to Hakodate, then a ship to Aomori, and then a train to Tōkyō. It took about a week. All throughout the trip, we slept on the station platform until the next train came. Because it was August, it was warm enough to survive.
Q: Did you have enough food?
A: Before we left Karafuto, I made onigiri (rice balls), and we also brought rice with us. I ate onigiri as we traveled. The only other food we had was umeboshi (pickled plums). Because of the lack of food, I couldn’t nurse my baby, your mother. She was about to die of malnutrition when we arrived in Japan, so I had to take her to the hospital several times. But she was relatively stronger than your uncle. You are stronger than your brother too.
Q: How did you feel when you returned to Japan after the war ended?
A: When we arrived at Ueno Station on a cargo train, I was so surprised to see that everything had burned down. Then we arrived in Den’enchōfu and saw our house, which was still standing. I was so relieved, and I thought that we would be able to survive.
Q: Was that the same house where you were born?
A: No, my mother and father, your great-grandparents, lived in Urawa, in Saitama. However, there were many of my younger sisters there, so we could not move in with them.
Q: So when you returned from Karafuto, the situation in Japan wasn’t that bad?
A: Yes, Japan was quick to recover. Trains were running soon after the bombing. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to reach Den’enchōfu.
Q: How was life in Den’enchōfu?
A: There wasn’t as much food as there is now. The farmers who grew rice had gone to war, and so were those who grew vegetables and all of the fishermen. We had nothing. Twice a week, we received haikyū (ration) coupons, and everyone lined up and got food, like half of a daikon (radish) or one kilogram of sugar.
Q: So losing a war must have been really tough.
A: Yes, but Japan was lucky that we lost to the U.S. If we had been conquered by the USSR, we would be like China now. Although the Soviets tried to reform their government, it turned into a disaster. The USSR is not bad; it’s just that they think in a particular way. Japan is a really lucky country now, because the people can vote and make decisions. Japan should thank the United States. It’s not that democracy is perfect and that Communism is all wrong. There are many kinds of people, who all have their own ways of thinking. It turned out that democracy, which the U.S. chose, has better effects. I don’t think you are old enough to understand this, but everything is related to politics in the end. War is a result of politics. That’s because of different ways of thinking. If people all agreed with each other on everything, there would never be any more wars. But things are really getting better. There won’t be any more wars.