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Unit 7—Handout 3
Survivor Testimony of Mr. Zhang Quanyou, Forced Labor Survivor,
75 years—Interviewed in 2006
I was thirteen years old when I was taken as a forced laborer. I was born and raised in Hunan Province.
I was born November 28, 1931. I am now 75 years old.
In 1942, because of famine in Hunan, I went to Shanxi Province but I was captured there. Thinking
about this time still makes me cry! The Japanese army said I was a guerilla. They tied us by the arms. One
person tried to escape, but he was killed on the spot. We were moved to another area. I became sick with
fever and I was not treated.
During captivity we were not allowed to go out. We even needed to ask to go to the toilet. If we didn’t,
we would be beaten and killed. Our living conditions were very poor. We were all covered with fl eas. We were
given serial numbers for identifi cation. Because I was thirteen, I received even poorer quality food. Some
people in the camp had the job of disposing of the dead bodies. I witnessed this. Every day, ten to twenty
people died. The burial workers told me they fi lled dry wells with the corpses.
After three to four months, we were told we were going home. Instead, the train brought us to Beijing.
The next night, we were sent on a boxcar. It was July and there were around 70 of us in the car. Fortunately, I
was the last to get on so I could get a bit of air. Before getting into the boxcar, I had grabbed a broken teapot.
This was fortunate because on the way, I collected and drank my own urine to survive.
It was a very short trip, but around forty people died along the way. Once we arrived at this new place,
we lived in a common shelter. We were stripped naked every night to prevent escape.
We were then sent on a boat to Japan. As we left, some prisoners realized we were being sent away from
China and they jumped in the water. They were fi shed out of the water and killed by the Japanese. We were
put on a cargo ship carrying coal. Once we were out to sea, some of the prisoners escaped by simply jumping
off the boat.
We disembarked at a port in Japan close to Tokyo. There were armed guards present to prevent us from
escaping. In the evenings, the Allies would bomb the port. The planes looked almost like swallows.
During the fi rebombing of Tokyo, this port was destroyed. Workers were then sent to three different
ports. I was sent to a port close to Hanaoka. Here, rations were poor and of horrendous quality. Our job
was to unload ships. We carried very heavy weights using bamboo. We unloaded a lot of copper from China.
These were looted metals and it made us very homesick. When we were tired and slipped, we were beaten. I
was beaten with an iron rod and I still have the scar on my hand.
We were forced to labor even after surrender. We rioted and broke through the gates. The Japanese
could do nothing to stop us.
After the war, we were sent to Akida Prison, which we used as our living quarters. We were then sent
home.
It has been over seventy years and Japan has still not acknowledged what it did.
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