Japanese ambassador attends memorial for Burma railway victims

Japan’s ambassador to the Netherlands has attended a ceremony to commemorate labourers who died during the construction of the Siam-Burma railway during the Second World War.

It is the first time Michii Rokuichiro has been invited to join the annual ceremony at the Bronbeek estate in Arnhem, where he laid a wreath before a memorial to the victims on Saturday.

Some 3,000 Dutch prisoners of war were among the tens of thousands of Allied soldiers and forced labourers from occupied south-east Asia who perished during the building of the 415km route between Thailand and Myanmar, which became known as the Death Railway.

The organisers of the ceremony said they had extended the invitation “as a sign of recognition and a meaningful step in the conversation about our shared history.” “Fortunately, our supporters were in favour,” said chairman Wouter Neuhaus.

“Nothing can take away the suffering that has been inflicted and the sorrow that the first and subsequent generations carry with them,” the organisation said in a statement on its website.

“But we not that within the community there is a need for reconciliation and dialogue, especially at a time when freedom can no longer be taken for granted.”

“Good for history”

Emmy Janssens, of the Dutch campaign group Stichting Japanse Ereschulden (Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts), told NOS that not everybody was comfortable with the decision.

“For me personally, it’s acceptable,” she said. “But I can understand if some people find it hard to swallow.”

Ed van de Logt, the last surviving Dutch labourer, who was guest of honour at the ceremony, said the ambassador’s attendance was “good for history”.

“It’s great that they have the courage to come here. It’s very good for history for the two countries to reconcile.”

It is the latest sign of Japan’s growing readiness to recognise the victims of the Second World War in countries it occupied and its treatment of prisoners of war.

The Japanese emperor, Naruhito, laid a wreath at the national war memorial in Amsterdam during his state visit in June, beside an urn representing the victims of the invasion of Indonesia in 1942, when it was a Dutch colony.

The emperor said it was “deeply heartbreaking” that people had suffered “agonising experiences” during the war and acknowledged that people in the Netherlands “even today continue to bear the pain of that time”.