When Lin Boyao visited fish vendor Ryokunan Suzuki, the old
Japanese man was well into his 90s. Lin knew he had served in the
Japanese Army's infamous 16th Division in Nanjing and the Chinese
businessman, based in Japan, had some very important questions to
ask.
"What did you do in Nanjing?" The former Japanese soldier looked
at the younger Chinese man and recalled the horrors.
"We drove many Chinese together then I shot at them, no matter
men or women, the old or children," Suzuki told Lin.
On the day he confessed his crimes to Lin, Suzuki collapsed in
remorse. His long-kept dark secrets, which had haunted him for more
than half a century, had been finally revealed.
Lin and his Japanese friends have collected evidence and
testimonies from almost 200 Japanese veterans confessing to their
horrific actions in Nanjing. And Lin's campaign to raise awareness
of the 1937 atrocity continues.
In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, Lin
is especially busy. Last week the 68-year-old Kobe businessman
accompanied two massacre survivors, Zhang Xiuhong and Wu Zhengxi,
to eight Japanese cities to take part in activities in memory of
the massacre.
"In fact the survivors do not want to recall the nightmare in
1937," says Lin, a second-generation Chinese living in Japan.
"Every time they talked about their agonies they would cry and
tremble."
Born into a clothing vendor's family based in Kyoto's
countryside, Lin endured a lot of "Shina" insults in his childhood,
especially during the Japanese invasion of China. Some malicious
Japanese even unleashed their dogs to chase Lin and his mother when
they peddled through villages selling clothes.
In 1990, when Japanese right wing politician Shintaro Ishihara
smeared the Nanjing Massacre as "a lie", Lin's childhood memories
called him into action to search for evidence of Japanese war
crimes.
Lin focused on finding evidence, while at the same time trying
to raise money for war victims and their families, who have filed
suits for compensation in Japan.
In 1997, he met with Azuma Shiro, one of the few ex-soldiers to
admit to his participation in Nanjing Massacre.
The family of another veteran Takeo Kajitani gave Lin Kajitani's
diary after he died. In the diary Kajitani wrote: "We forced them
to stand against a wall. Then we shot them with four machine guns.
There were more than 3,000 Chinese."
In 2001, when Japanese right wing activists launched a campaign
to deny the Nanjing Massacre in Osaka, Lin organized a protest
campaign to call on Japanese to find out the truth.
"The right wing activists are absurd to deny the truth although
the massacre survivors are still suffering mentally and
physically," Lin says.
"In my view, the Nanjing Massacre goes beyond a history issue in
China-Japan relations," Lin says. "The massacre is a catastrophe in
human history. The whole world should remember and learn lessons
from this disaster."
(China Daily December 13, 2007)