



By Kang Hyun-kyung







Korea-Japan tensions appear to be at an all-time high. Whenever their relations go from bad to worse, I always think of two Japanese people I met in November 2012 at the National Institute of Korean History in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province.







One is Japanese NGO leader Ichiba Junko, the other a human rights lawyer whose name I don't remember.







It was a magnificent autumn day. I remember the institute was surrounded by beautiful trees with leaves turned red and yellow.







The two Japanese were there for a full-day seminar to revisit the Hiroshima court's historic ruling that gave the green light to a Korean survivor of the 1945 atomic bombings, to benefit from medical treatment and allowances from the Japanese government.







About 70,000 Koreans were victimized by the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which led to the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II. Some 40,000 died as a direct result of the bombing and some 20,000 out of the remaining 30,000 Koreans returned home after the war.







The survivors' ordeals didn't end there. They have suffered the consequences of the atomic blast all their lives. Some survivors filed lawsuits against the Japanese government, demanding it allow them to benefit from the same medical treatments and allowances to which Japanese survivors were entitled. They lost.







A breakthrough ruling came in December 2002 in Hiroshima.







Ichiba Junko and the human rights lawyer I mentioned earlier in this article played a significant role in the Japanese court ruling in favor of the Korean wartime victim Kwak Kwy-hoon at that time.





During

to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the ruling at the institute, the Japanese lawyer talked briefly about the suffering he had gone through while helping the Korean wartime victim in Japan.







He said right-wing Japanese mocked him because he was seen as a man fighting against his government to help Koreans. He went on to say they painted him as a traitor and pit him against the rest of the Japanese which he said was challenging to endure.



Facing such criticism from within, he said there were times when he was skeptical about his work.







He spoke in Japanese and his speech was translated into Korean through a simultaneous interpreter.







The Japanese human rights lawyer was the key person behind the Hiroshima court's historic ruling. He submitted critical evidence to the court which supports that the Korean survivors were entitled to the post-war medical treatment and allowances.







The smoking gun was a pocket-sized journal which was later known among Koreans as "Kim Soon-gil's diary."







Kim, a wartime slave labor victim who worked for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Hiroshima in 1945 when the atomic bombings occurred, kept his journal almost every day with detailed descriptions of his daily life and inhumane working conditions he and other Koreans had endured.







The Japanese lawyer showed Kim's journal to me, upon my request during a break in the seminar. I had many questions for him but the language barrier prevented us from exchanging our views, which is still regrettable.







I was able to hear more from Ms. Ichiba, now president of the Osaka-based nonprofit group Association of Citizens for Supporting South Korean Atomic Bomb Victims, because she could speak intermediate level Korean. She said she teamed up with several human rights lawyers and grassroots Japanese to move the campaign forward to help Korean wartime victims.







In 2012, she said her organization had some 800 members who pay monthly fees that are used to help Korean atomic bomb survivors.







The two heroic Japanese ― from Korean's perspective ― have reminded me of what's going on in Korea. I wonder if we have people like Ms. Ichiba and the Japanese human rights lawyer who dedicated their lives to ending historical animosity and improving Korea-Japan relations.







I wonder why it is so hard to find people like them in Korea who are fighting for the greater good which sometimes risks their reputation at home.







I believe we do have such concerned people as Ms. Ichiba and the Japanese human rights lawyer.







The difference is that in Korea, people like them find it tough to openly express their frank views about Korea-Japan relations because of the deadly ideological divide.







If you speak differently from other Koreans about a key issue related to Korea-Japan relations, you need to be prepared for the consequences. There is an unspecific number of vocal, divisive people who would paint you as a Japan sympathizer or "a homegrown pirate," a derogatory term in vogue to refer to pro-Japanese Koreans.







Calling openly for constructive Korea-Japan relations requires a great deal of courage for Koreans. But there are certainly people who feel the need for a breakthrough in current Korea-Japan relations.

