war veterans

Podcast: POW

Hidemi WoodsLeave a comment
Episode from The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods 
 
Audiobook 1 : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Audiobook 2 : My Social Distancing and Naked Spa in Japan by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. 
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total. 
 
POW 
Once, on the festival for the local shrine of my hometown, my favorite grandfather on my mother’s side and I were talking alone at the front yard of my house. He knew a lot about plants and taught me the names of trees in the yard. There was a rooftop space above the garage and it was surrounded by a fence. We went up the rooftop and my grandfather began to climb the fence.
I tried to stop him but he said he could walk along the top of the fence. He was a war veteran and had been a POW in Russia for many years. In those days, according to him, Russian soldiers made POWs climb up tall chimneys and shot them from the ground for fun. His fellow POWs fell or got shot to death. Luckier men continued to climb up and survived.
My grandfather was one of the latter. Although he was old and a little drunk after the festival meal, he balanced himself and walked on the narrow fence, which was merely 4 inches wide and 13 feet above the ground. Watching him easily walking on the fence, I understood how dreadful his life as a POW was. This must be a cinch for him compared to forced acrobatics. He jumped off the fence and said smiling, “See? It’s easy!” while I was crying for many reasons…

Flags of Our Fathers

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I watched the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers’. It reminded me of my late grandfather on my mother’s side. He fought battles in World War II not in Iojima but in China. He was taken to Russia as a POW and was kept captive in the freezing Siberia prisoner’s camp. It was four years after the war when he was released and returned home. He had been away for eight years in total.

　After he came back, he became a locally prominent man, being a mayor and working as a member of a board of education. People looked up to him. I’ve been treated with favor on several occasions as his granddaughter. In his later years though, he suffered from Alzheimer’s and he would shout “There came Russian soldiers!” during the night or even at a restaurant.

　Writing about him recalled a peculiar incident. When I visited his house, I found that he had put up a big picture of the Japanese Emperor in his room. I uttered “You have bad taste!” because I believed in democracy. He replied sadly, “Hidemi, you should not say such a thing.” I’d forgotten the fact that he was one of the war veterans who went to the war for the Emperor. He was always so gentle that he rarely criticized anyone. That was the first and the only time that he reproved me…

Episode From An Old Tree in Kyoto /Hodemi Woods

Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks,  43 available distributors in total