- Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution
- Sites of Distorted Facts and Concealed Truth
Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution
Table of Contents Open Contents
- 1 Inscription of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution and Denial of History
- 2 Historical Facts behind the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution
- 3. Succession of Memory and World Heritage
- 4. Vanished Voices, Vanished History
- 5. Forced Mobilization and Labor as Seen in Textbooks
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6. Related Materials
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6-1 Korean Government Fact-finding Report
- Fact-finding Investigation into Damages on Koreans Under Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 2011.7.
- Investigation into Damages of ‘Double Conscription’ in Sakhalin, 2007.8
- Basic Investigation through Death Records into Conditions of Korean Victims of Forced Mobilization to the Hashima Coal Mine, 2012.12
- Fact-finding Investigation into Korean Deaths through Cremation Permits in Sakito-cho, Nagasaki Prefecture - 2011.6.
- 6-2 Appeal from the Victims
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6-1 Korean Government Fact-finding Report
How is it Portrayed in Japanese Textbooks?
Forced mobilization and forced labor are mentioned in textbooks currently used in schools as follows: three elementary school social studies textbooks, seven high school Japanese history A textbooks, and seven out of eight Japanese history B textbooks; seven middle school history textbooks approved in 2020 and slated for use from 2021 also deal with the subject.
| Type | Subject | Number | Forced mobilization (forced labor) mentioned in: |
| Elementary school (authorized in 2019) | Social Studies (Grade 6) | 3 | 3(100%) |
| Middle school (authorized in 2020) | Social Studies - History | 7 | 7(100%) |
| High school (authorized in 2016ㆍ2017, one authorized in 2012) | Japanese History A | 7 | 7(100%) |
| Japanese History B | 8 | 7(88%) |
There are some detailed technical differences depending on the type of school and publisher, but most of the textbooks treat the subject in line with the idea that “national policy subjected Koreans and others to mobilization against their will in which they worked in harsh conditions.”
There are textbooks that clearly deal with the subject of forced mobilization and labor, of which the following are representative of their type:
| Type | Content |
| Elementary school | As the war dragged on and Japan faced a shortage of labor, many Koreans and Chinese were forcibly taken away for hard work under harsh conditions in places such as factories and mines. (Tokyo Shoseki, Social Studies) |
| Middle school | Many Koreans and Chinese were brought to Japan against their will and were forced to work in mines and factories and the like under harsh conditions. (Tokyo Shoseki, Social Studies) |
| High school | Various methods were used to make up the shortage of labor: group recruitment from 1939, official agency placement from 1942, and the National Draft Ordinance in 1944. From this, some 800,000 Koreans were forcibly taken away to the Japanese mainland, Karafuto (Sakhalin), Asia and the Pacific. During the same period, 4.15 million Koreans were taken by force to mines and factories within Korea, along with another 110,000 as laborers in the military. In addition to this, some 40,000 Chinese were also forcibly taken to Japan. The excessively harsh labor led to a great number of fatalities, and a Chinese uprising also occurred in Akita Prefecture which led to the deaths of about 420 people. (The Hanaoka Event). (Jikkyo Shuppan Co., Ltd., Japanese History A) |
