Akiko Tagawa, the head of the Utoro peace memorial hall, explains the purpose of the museum dedicated to wartime Korean laborers and their descendants who decided to settle in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, after World War II. (Video by Yoshiaki Konishi)

Photo/Illutration Visitors view a recreation of the living room of Kim Gun-ja, one of the first generation of Korean residents in Uji, at the Utoro peace memorial hall in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, on April 30. (Yoshiaki Konishi)

UJI, Kyoto Prefecture--A peace memorial hall opened in this district that is synonymous with the hardships faced by wartime Korean laborers who were stuck in Japan after World War II and decided to settle here, creating a Korean community that exists to this day.

The three-story Utoro peace memorial hall, with a total floor space of 450 square meters, opened in the Utoro district on April 30. It was built with the aim of passing down the turbulent history of the area and also to offer a venue for encounters and exchanges between Japanese and ethnic Koreans.

It features a reconstructed bunkhouse used by laborers from the Korean Peninsula, a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, who were mobilized to build an airfield in Kyoto Prefecture as part of Japan’s war effort.

The bunkhouse, built around 1943, was in a decrepit state when it was reconstructed in the grounds close to the entrance to the hall. Officials said it gives visitors a sense of the harsh living conditions the laborers endured.

It had no inside toilets and the occupants had to draw water from wells outside.

The memorial hall also features a recreation of the living room of Kim Gun-ja, who was among the first generation of Korean residents to settle in the district. The display shows a furnace, a small dining table, a calendar and other items of daily life, alongside an iron pillar that shored up the dilapidated roof to keep it from collapsing.

Kim, who died in 2014, spearheaded efforts to improve the lives of residents in the district by campaigning for assistance from South Korea’s president and other sources.

“She (Kim) concealed the difficulties she endured,” said Akiko Tagawa, the 77-year-old head of the museum. “She used to say that continuing to live in the district was her way of campaigning for improvements in the neighborhood.”

Around 1,300 Korean workers lived in the Utoro district when World War II ended with Japan’s defeat, ending the country’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. It remained a community of ethnic Koreans into the present day.

But the land on which their homes were built was resold in 1987, and the new landowner sued the residents to force them to vacate the plot.

Although the residents eventually lost the case in 2000, they received financing from a foundation affiliated with the South Korean government, along with donations from the private sector, to purchase part of the land by 2011, which was used to build public housing.

By spring 2023, those who want to remain in the area will finish moving in.

In a ceremony to inaugurate the museum, Cho Seong-ryoul, consul general of the Consulate General of South Korea in Osaka, said the hall is not just meant to remember the painful history of residents of the district, but to offer a venue where Japanese and Koreans interact to work together for human rights and peace.

Related News