Feature: 84 years on, scars of Japanese wartime massacre remain fresh in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- More than eight decades have passed, but Siow Zhao Di still remembers the day she lay motionless among the dead, too afraid to open her eyes.

"My grandmother, my sisters, my aunt and my mother -- they were all stabbed to death by the Japanese soldiers," said Siow, now in her 90s, recalling the massacre that devastated her village during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

On Dec. 8, 1941, Japanese forces invaded what was then Malaya, beginning three years and eight months of Japanese occupation. During the occupation, Japanese forces carried out brutal "Sook Ching" massacres targeting the local community.

On March 18, 1942, Japanese troops carried out an indiscriminate massacre in the village of Yu Lang Lang (Jelundong) in Titi, Negeri Sembilan, and then set the village ablaze.

According to figures compiled by the local Chinese community, 1,474 unarmed civilians were killed that day, making it the deadliest single-day massacre of civilians during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Siow was still a child at the time. She remembered that on that day, Japanese soldiers deceived villagers into gathering at a school at the entrance to the village before taking them away in groups of more than a dozen.

Siow, together with her mother, neighbors and others, was taken to a house in the village.

"My mother was kneeling when they stabbed her. She pressed herself over me to shield me. The Japanese soldiers stabbed me in the leg and struck my uncle's head with an axe," Siow said.

As she spoke, she rolled up her trouser leg, revealing a scar left by the attack more than eight decades ago.

Not long afterward, some Japanese soldiers returned and patted the shoulders of villagers lying on the ground one by one to check whether anyone was still alive.

"I didn't dare move or open my eyes," Siow recalled. While the soldiers went to inspect other houses, an elderly woman from next door helped her escape.

"After checking, the Japanese soldiers set fire to the houses again," she said. Soon, the entire village was engulfed in flames.

The massacre at Yu Lang Lang did not take place in isolation.

"Chinese communities across Malaya were closely connected with China's resistance against Japanese aggression. Fundraising campaigns, charity performances and the Nanyang volunteers who returned to China to support the war effort all drew close attention from the Japanese forces," said Ong Leong Keat, a Chinese Malaysian historian in Negeri Sembilan.

Ong said Japanese forces carried out large-scale roundups and massacres in Singapore and Malaya, known as "screening" or "Sook Ching," mainly targeting ethnic Chinese suspected of supporting anti-Japanese activities.

"In reality, the victims also included the elderly, women and children. People could even become targets of massacre simply because they lived in villages regarded by the Japanese forces as 'suspicious,'" he said.

According to historical records, in March 1942 alone, Japanese forces carried out more than 20 massacres across Negeri Sembilan, killing nearly 5,000 people. Scholars in Malaysia and Singapore have noted that the actual death toll could have been higher due to the lack of complete written records.

The horrors of 84 years ago remain vivid in Siow's memory. Yet in Japan, she said, this chapter of history has long been downplayed or even denied.

"All these years, no matter how many times we tell the story, it seems to make no difference. The Japanese say they did not kill people in Malaya. They refuse to admit it," Siow said.

Siow and other survivors have recounted their experiences in interviews on numerous occasions, while some survivors have traveled to Japan to testify about the atrocities they witnessed.

For historians, preserving such testimony is particularly important as the number of surviving witnesses dwindles.

"A country and a society should honestly confront the wars of aggression they launched in the past and the harm those wars inflicted on civilians," said Tan Chee Seng, a senior lecturer in history at Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Tan noted that in 1995, the Japanese government's Murayama Statement explicitly expressed remorse and apologized for Japan's colonial rule and aggression.

"The question is whether those principles can be consistently reflected over the long term in history education, access to archives and research into specific historical events," he said.

In 1984, the Negeri Sembilan Chinese Assembly Hall established a committee to collect historical materials on the suffering of the Chinese community in Negeri Sembilan during the Japanese occupation. The committee documented accounts from survivors and victims' families, compiling them into a volume published in 1988.

When asked how she viewed Japan's attitude toward this history, Siow fell silent. Her eyes settled on a copy of the book.

"It's all true. Everything in this book is the truth," Siow said slowly. "Take this book to Tokyo and show it to them."