Date of letter:1993-02-20
Address of author:Beijing City
Date of event:1931-1945
Location of event:Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province
Name of author:Xia Yuqin
Name(s) of victim(s):Xia Yuqin’s father
Type of atrocity:Others (OT)
Other details:In 1931, after the three provinces in the northeast of China were occupied, the Japanese soldiers and their families stationed in Zhangjiacun Village. The villagers all kept away from them, but there were still people caught. My father was ever caught to do hard work. Once the Japanese soldiers let a dog bite my father, and they watched and laughed. One day in 1945, my father was caught by the Japanese soldiers, and was released after we asked for a bondsman. For this reason, my father got mental disease.
Comrade Tong Zeng,
After reading the article entitled “Pursuing Justice from Japan” from Digest Weekly, I got very emotional and recalled my suffering of losing my family in my childhood. Pursuing justice from Japan is a cry from my heart. Thank you for doing what the victims want to do.
I am willing to participate in the signature campaign demanding compensation from Japan for victims and their family members launched by you and your colleagues. Let’s make Japan formally apologize to and compensate us.
I work with the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, China National Petroleum Corporation. I was born in Sunjia Village, Xiangfang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. In 1931 after the three northeastern provinces fell, all four directions of Sunjia Village were stationed by the Japanese army and their families. The villagers going to Harbin for business or the field for farming must cross the Japanese camps. Even though the villagers would try to keep a far distance from the camps as much as possible, they were often captured to work for the Japanese.
My father, then over 20, was captured as a slave laborer for multiple times and often beaten and cursed by the Japanese. There was one time when my father was on his way home, a Japanese soldier was training a dog beside the camp. Suddenly after the soldier said something to it, the dog threw itself at my father and dragged him towards the camp. As my father was bitten, he screamed out of fear. The Japanese soldier laughed happily and then called the dog back. After that, my father dared not go out for over 10 days, couldn’t sleep at night and would be troubled by any sound from outside.
At over 4 p.m. on one afternoon in spring of 1945, the Japanese soldiers surrounded Sunjia Village and claimed to capture murderers. When my father came back to the village from buying medicine in Harbin, seeing so many Japanese soldiers armed with bayonets, he didn’t know whether to go forward or backward. Then, 5 or 6 Japanese soldiers ran to him and took him away by putting him in a sack. On that day, about 20 people were captured. Each of them was put in a sack and then the sack was sealed and laid on the road. Then, the Japanese soldiers ran on the sacks. After the running exhausted them, they opened the sacks and let the villagers to identify the people in the sacks who had fallen into a coma due to suffocation and treading. The people in the sacks could only be carried home on the condition that someone guaranteed they were “good people”.
After this torture, my father was sick for more than half a year and couldn’t get out of bed. Moreover, he was mentally deranged, couldn’t sleep at night and would often hide himself. There must be someone taking care of him day and night. Then, one time, my father ran out of the house at over 2 a.m. in the morning, fell into a well and drowned himself. He was then only 25, my mother 23, I 4 and my younger sister 2. To make a living, my mother remarried by taking my younger sister with her and entrusted me to the care of my uncle. Thus, my family was torn apart and I lost a happy childhood, causing great pain to me in the first half of my life.
I hate Japanese invaders to the core and I demand them to compensate Chinese victims and their family members for their losses.
My phone number:
2017731-365 (audit office)
2017731-721 (home)
Xia Yuqin
February 20, 1993
