National Dong Hwa University on Wednesday opened an exhibit of the personal collection of the late Cheng Teng-shan’s (程登山) research of the Takasago Volunteers, reviving memories for many Aborigine visitors regarding those “dark days.”
Hualien County Sioulin Township’s (秀林) Aborigine Village Interaction Committee Director Tang Ching-hsia (湯慶夏) said his father had told him that many men — including Tang’s father — from the village were taken away by the Japanese during World War II.
We did not know they were going to serve in the Takasago unit, Tang said.
The “Takasago volunteers” refer to Taiwanese Aborigines drafted by the Japanese colonial government in the 1940s to serve in the Imperial Army in Southeast Asia.
While his father had returned, many did not and it was a sore subject for elders in the family and the village, Tang said.
Cheng,a Truku, had been dean of Heping Elementary School and dedicated his life to researching the issue, hoping to obtain from Japan compensation for the families of the deceased.
Tang remembers Cheng visiting every household in his village, asking if any members of the family had been drafted by the Imperial Japanese and, if they said they had been, making meticulous records of their names and history.
“We are truly thankful to Cheng and his campaign for our rights,” Tang said, adding that it was due to Cheng and many others like him that the Japanese government had begun to pay compensation to the survivors or their families through the Red Cross Society.
The university has blurred certain pictures to respect the privacy and right of personal information for some individuals, officials said.
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