Photo/Illutration A museum curator explains displays on Korean laborers in the Aikawa-sakashitamachi district in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, on July 28. (Yoshinobu Motegi)

SADO, Niigata Prefecture—The Aikawa Kyodo Hakubutsukan gold mine museum unveiled a permanent exhibition on the history of the area's mining sites that includes records of laborers from the Korean Peninsula. 

The July 28 opening follows the island's gold mines officially being named a World Cultural Heritage site.

When the museum opened its doors at 8:30 a.m. the day the exhibit launched, it was met with tourists already arriving.

One of them was Hisashi Sato, a 38-year-old company employee from Tokyo who was visiting with his family.

“I learned, for the first time, that Korean miners were working in the gold mines," he said. "It is important to present the facts as they are.”

The exhibit's inclusion of miners from the Korean Peninsula comes after the South Korean government objected to granting the mines UNESCO status because of their history of "forced labor." 

Negotiations between the International Council on Monuments and Sites, Seoul and Tokyo culminated in the exhibit that details the conditions workers faced across some 30 panels.

“I hope visitors will get a sense of the entire history of the sites through the exhibitions,” said museum curator Haruka Shoji.

According to the panels, 1,519 laborers from the Korean Peninsula worked in the mines from 1940 until the end of World War II in 1945.

Korean miners were often given dangerous assignments underground compared to their Japanese counterparts. There is also a record of Korean laborers protesting for better working conditions. 

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