Memorial stones to be built in Japan to honor S. Korean forced laborers

SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Yonhap) — Memorial stones will be installed in Hokkaido in Japan to honor South Koreans forced to work there during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), a civic group said Sunday.

The group, Steppingstone for Peace, said it is putting the “stepping stones for peace” on various sites where the forced labor took place.

The stones will be topped with copperplate, 45 centimeters in width and 35 cm in length, with information like the victims’ names, ages, places of birth, dates of birth and death, and the causes of death written in both Korean and Japanese.

This image, provided by Steppingstone for Peace, shows the letterings of the stones.

The stones will be installed initially in three places: the Shumarinai Dam, the Mitsubishi Bibai coal mine, and the Honganji Temple in Sapporo.

On Saturday, around 20 members of the Korean civic group left for Japan where they will be joined by a Japanese civic group called “East Asia Citizens’ Network.”

The two groups have been excavating the bodies of 115 forced labor victims in Hokkaido since 1971 without any support from either government.

This file photo shows the ashes of 115 forced South Korean laborers placed in a cemetery in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, in September 2015.

Last autumn, they carried the remains on a 3,000 km tour throughout Japan before they finally brought them back to Korea. The remains were placed in the cemetery “Homecoming in 70 Years” in Paju, Gyeonggi Province.

The installation is their latest effort to continue to remind both nations of the painful history. Despite protests from radical Japanese groups, they say their efforts will continue unabated.

On Monday, they will hold a symposium “Homecoming in 70 Years and Peace in East Asia” in Japan.

The two groups said they will continue to work together to expand the number of memorial stones and create an online site dedicated to spreading and sharing information about Japan’s brutal activities during the colonial period.

“Many victims still remain buried on forced labor sites around Japan,” said Chug Byudng-ho, professor of Cultural Anthropology in Hanyang University in Seoul. “In cooperation with the Japanese civic group, we will continue sending warnings against the nationalist movement by Japan’s extreme right groups, not to mention telling true history to the international community.”