Originally posted on July 4, 2019.
Continuing from the previous chapter, and based on Shiro Suzuki’s interview published in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, this piece questions the false stigma surrounding the comfort women issue and the Nanjing Massacre through the testimony of former soldiers encountered on the Longevity Quiz program.
Through what those who participated in the Battle of Nanjing said about local realities, their contact with Chinese people, their understanding of the comfort women, and the lingering pain that has not disappeared even after the war, it argues that the truth of history must be conveyed and their honor restored.

2019-07-04
And I want to clear the stigma of the comfort women and the stigma of Nanjing that the elderly told me about, saying, “Shirō-san, please listen.”

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Shirō-san, please listen.　
Of the 12,000 elderly people who have participated in the program so far, nearly half took part in the Sino-Japanese War as soldiers.
Many were also involved in the Battle of Nanjing.
We talk about many things before and after the recordings, and among them there are quite a number of elderly people who say, “There is something I absolutely must say about the Battle of Nanjing.”　
What they all say, without exception, is, “We were very warmly welcomed.”
There is no discrepancy at all between what I myself felt in Nanjing and heard there, and what they say.
Among the elderly, there are those who told me that Chinese people called out to them, saying, “Soldier, I cut your hair for you,” and they had their hair cut on the street, or that someone said, “I will carve you a fine seal,” and that they still treasure that seal even now.
What many of them say is, “The Chinese people were not afraid of us at all. That was true of women and children too.”　
“Shirō-san, there was no Nanjing Massacre. By the time we got there, the soldiers had already mostly been wiped out and were no longer there, and the civilians had gone into the Safety Zone, so when they heard that the Japanese soldiers had come, they would say, ‘Then it’s all right,’ and I often met Nanjing citizens coming back.”　
There were elderly people who stated this that clearly.
Another person confided to me, “I entered Nanjing as a medic, treated the wounds of a young Chinese wounded soldier who had failed to escape, and when I delivered him by military truck to his family home in the suburbs, they were extremely grateful. They gave me a family treasure, a hanging scroll, and said, ‘By all means, please come after the war is over. We want to welcome you warmly,’ and I would like to go to Nanjing.”　
I also heard a great many stories from the elderly about the comfort women. They were stories like this.　
“Suzuki-san, listen to me, those women were well provided for! Among us, people used to say, ‘I wish I could be a woman in a comfort station too, three meals, naps included, and so much money you could build a house.’ There would be a cloth bag by the pillow, packed tight with money and military scrip, and they were proud and bossy too. Young soldiers would finish just by seeing the comfort women, and then it was, ‘Here, wash up!’ After washing, ‘All right, get on!’ It was just like saluting a superior officer, ‘Excuse me,’ ‘Please,’ ‘Yes. Finished.’ It was over in an instant.”
The elderly speak of such things brightly and humorously, but I cannot help feeling that somewhere in their hearts they are thinking, “That is not true!” when they hear claims such as “comfort women = sex slaves.”　
The same is true of the “Nanjing Massacre.”
There is no contradiction between the air I myself directly breathed in Nanjing, what I saw and heard there, and the stories of the former soldiers.
Within Japan, the understanding that there was no such thing as the “Nanjing Massacre” has become fairly widely known, and recognition has spread that the once frequently asserted claim of a massacre of 300,000 people is impossible both historically and logically.　
However, even now, when there are reports that materials concerning the Nanjing Massacre have been registered in UNESCO’s Memory of the World, I am sure that for the former soldiers who were there at the time, such news cannot leave them at peace.　
The Longevity Quiz has continued for more than twenty years.
Even now, it continues once a year.
I too have turned eighty, and among the elderly who now appear, more and more are of my own generation and have no experience of military service.
Former soldiers appear less often now.
I feel a little lonely about that, but I want to continue as I always have, with the sincere wish that everyone should enjoy themselves.
And I want to clear the stigma of the comfort women and the stigma of Nanjing that the elderly people told me about, saying, “Shirō-san, please listen.”
That is how I feel.