IN HIS article last Wednesday ("Japan, Singapore, and 70 years of post-war ties"), Professor Narushige Michishita said that the Japanese occupation of Singapore was a dreadful atrocity. I myself lost loved ones during the war, and still carry memories of life during those miserable three years and eight months.
Operation Sook Ching remains a dark chapter in Singapore's history; few lived to tell the story. I witnessed my father, uncles and neighbours from the lorongs in Geylang being rounded up by armed Japanese troops and local police officers.
The interrogations to screen out suspected anti-Japanese activists, conducted under the watchful eye of the Kempeitai military police, were rigorous. Detainees were segregated into groups based on vocation, such as engineering or woodworking.
Officials asked my father, a mechanic, for proof of his occupation. He had no identification papers to show and, hence, could prove his claim only by showing his two rough hands and the calluses on his palms. My father survived the ordeal and was released - yet he also witnessed several being herded into military trucks and driven away.
My father returned a number of days afterwards, pale and haggard. He related the ordeal to the family, describing how the atmosphere in the camp was one that was permeated with fear and despair, and how people's fates could be so arbitrarily sealed by a group of interrogators, interpreters and observers.
The day my father came home remains one of my most cherished memories.
The past seven decades have seen Singapore transform into an independent, vibrant city-state, and, in that time, its relations with Japan have grown from strength to strength.
While I have the utmost respect for the Japanese people and their culture, the wounds of the past have left me even more concerned regarding the politically charged historical debate over Japan's World War II legacy.
I hope that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe embraces the wisdom that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it - only by coming to terms with the past can we avert disastrous recurrences in future.
Paul Chan Poh Hoi
Operation Sook Ching remains a dark chapter in Singapore's history; few lived to tell the story. I witnessed my father, uncles and neighbours from the lorongs in Geylang being rounded up by armed Japanese troops and local police officers.
The interrogations to screen out suspected anti-Japanese activists, conducted under the watchful eye of the Kempeitai military police, were rigorous. Detainees were segregated into groups based on vocation, such as engineering or woodworking.
Officials asked my father, a mechanic, for proof of his occupation. He had no identification papers to show and, hence, could prove his claim only by showing his two rough hands and the calluses on his palms. My father survived the ordeal and was released - yet he also witnessed several being herded into military trucks and driven away.
My father returned a number of days afterwards, pale and haggard. He related the ordeal to the family, describing how the atmosphere in the camp was one that was permeated with fear and despair, and how people's fates could be so arbitrarily sealed by a group of interrogators, interpreters and observers.
The day my father came home remains one of my most cherished memories.
The past seven decades have seen Singapore transform into an independent, vibrant city-state, and, in that time, its relations with Japan have grown from strength to strength.
While I have the utmost respect for the Japanese people and their culture, the wounds of the past have left me even more concerned regarding the politically charged historical debate over Japan's World War II legacy.
I hope that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe embraces the wisdom that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it - only by coming to terms with the past can we avert disastrous recurrences in future.
Paul Chan Poh Hoi
