Jia Mingyuan

(Notes: Jia Mingyuan is a cadre retires from the Shenyang Engine Factory. He lives in No. 18-431 Putuoshanlu Road Nujiangjie street Huanggu district Shengyang. This article sorts out of the his memory.)

My hometown is Jiajiazuang village. Japanese army’s burning, killing and robbing made our family (father, mother, two sisters and I) poor extremely after they have invaded my hometown. After the spring of 1942 passed, we hear from someone in the east village that Japanese recruits workers to Dalian at the Huangqipu railway station. And may go there with family members. The supervisor is a person in Hanji village nearby. Afterward he becomes a junior ganger in Dalian. He says we would eat rice and flour in Dalian and it is a good place. He persuades us to go there. My father thinks it maybe a mean of subsistence so he goes to Huangqipu railway station to sign up with the whole family. After signing up, he gives us ten Yuan and we are sent to Qingdao by the train. Everyone is given a steamed bread of corn in Qingdao and it is not full at all. They gather more than one thousand people everywhere in a big hall to instruct the next day. Then we are carried to Dalian by a steamship that just discharges the coal. A laborer is dead on the way and he is thrown into the sea.

We are sent to the red house of Shahekou Railway Plant as soon as we arrive at Dalian. Dalian red house is the nickname of Japanese Fuchang Company. It is a famous Japanese laborer house in Dalian. The red house is made up of two parts. One lies in Ceiergou, which serves for the dock specially. The other lies in Shahekou, which serves for the railway and the Engine Plant specially. Our whole family is assigned to Shahekou. The laborer houses compose two big south and north yards in Shahekou. There is an east and west alleyway between them. There is a big凵 form laborer shed. There are two layer opposition hammocks in the shed. Laborers live there after they are off duty. There is a passage between them. The other small yard lies to the south of the south big yard. There is a small door between them. There are some rubbishy board houses in the small yard. The laborers’ family members live here. The expenditure of the family members is paid by laborers. The working site of laborers is the Engine Factory now. I am a child laborer at that time. My jobs are heavy physical force jobs such as to dig the ditch and to carry the soil etc. I am in possession of the junior ganger on and off duty. The laborers of the red house have no freedom. They must ask leave when he want to go out. The junior ganger lives in the yard in order to prevent laborers to escape. One caught after escaping is beating to eyes of laborers to show warning. Our food is the steamed bread of moldy maize flour and the kaoliang rice gnawed by worms. We must close our eyes to have the meal. There is a small piece of radish pickles and a bowl of soup sometimes. Ganger Yan is knocking as shouting to make laborers get up at five o’clock every morning. Laborers are beaten if they slow a little. There has no wage as a laborer. Sometime my father asks for wage from the ganger. He is abused by the ganger and is told that we owe the ganger yet.

The sanitation of the red house is very bad. The filth inside and outside is full of ground. The flies and mosquitoes fly in disorder. The bad smell makes people choke. The infectious disease raged easily. The illness worker is sent off to the red house hospital (laborers call it “kangdong hospital”) to be treated on insulation. Many ill people are sent off there but few people can come back lively. Reputedly, the hospital prepared a lot of coffins that made of very thin and rubbishy board. He is put into the coffin after death. The coffin is nailed so the relative can see him from the sew of rubbishy board. Many laborers and their family members are dead. Some whole families are dead at the red house. Our whole families were ill in June 1942. The youngest sister one year old dies first. My father is sent into hospital as soon as he is ill. My mother falls on the ground as soon as she enters the door one afternoon. She says to us: “Children, I will pass away.” My oldest sister and I can’t rise for illness. We are all crying on the board bed when we hear her words. My mother enjoins us to escape when my father comes back. Then she can’t speak any more and dies after struggling for a while. She is just thirty six. Then my mother’s body is carried out by two laborers. The laborer who met leech craft shows mercy on my sister and me and slinking treats us with acupuncture on the second day. Such we just look up. On the third day, I am able to rise so I look for my mother’s body. But I see piles of bodies of laborer family members at the root of the wall. The bodies are covered with rubbishy mat so I cannot identify. I have no choice but come back with crying. One laborer relation who is on speaking terms with my mother brings a pair of shoes. She wants me to put it on my mother’s foot. I kneel to kowtow to the old aunt and then go to the place where keeps my mother. I just find my mother under other laborers. Half face of my mother disappears for eaten by maggots. We put shoes on my mother’s feet. Then my mother is curled up with mat and is carried to the unmarked Mass Grave. There are many new graves all over the hillside. We almost cannot find any place. We find a place after a fashion and bury my mother. My sister and I don’t starve to death thanks to the laborers’ help. They give us their saving food. The very lucky among the misfortune is my father’s recovering from hospital in July. Before long, father brings us to escape from the red house by stealth in one evening according to my mother’s will. At daybreak, we get to a small village. The villagers give us some corn porridge and cooked potato for they think us sorryness. Just in this way, we escape northward along the road without assurance of the meal. We arrive nearby Jinzhou after two days. A landlord of a village stays us behind. My father serves as the long-term hired hand. I keep cattle. My sister serves as a child bride. Afterward, my father serves as the long-term hired hand for another landlord. I follow him.

In the spring of 1945, Japanese army apportions laborers for building the Longwangmiao military engineering project. The landlord sends me to be a laborer in his name. Laborers chisel the stone, dig the ditch and build the base. The intensity of the labor is great. Japanese does not satisfy this. They hit and scold laborers with the hold of the pickaxe, supervise and urge laborers to work hard. The abode of laborers is the mat shed. The mosquitoes and bugs indulge in willful persecution. There is not any security and medical treatment ensure when laborers are working. So the dead and injury things take place repeatedly. One is put into the straw bag and thrown into a big pit (formed for picking the stone) on the foot of eastern hill carrying by a carriage. The common people call it “Mass Grave”. The ambient wild dogs even attack quickly because they eat the body without any fear. It is true on my eyes that a young laborer who can still breathe and see but cannot speak for his heavy infection in the shed is sent to the “Mass Grave” according to the ganger’s order. It is true that there are piles of skeletons in “Mass Grave” and I am a historical eyewitness. I work as a laborer for three months at Longwangmiao. I recur to serve as a labor at the landlord home. Japanese surrender soon.