Woodblock prints offer new perspective on 82nd anniversary of Nanatsudate disaster

As the 82nd anniversary of the Nanatsudate mining disaster approaches, Korean and Japanese scholars are re-examining woodblock prints that document the tragedy, which claimed the lives of dozens of Korean and Japanese laborers during the Japanese colonial era. The analysis focuses on two prints by Japanese artist Nii Hiroharu and a series of poems by Seibe Yoshio.

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Until now, it was seen merely as a passive plea for rescue, but it also contains the intense anger and appeal for human dignity that the families of the Korean victims must have felt.

The Nanatsudate incident occurred on May 29, 1944, at the Hanaoka mine in Akita Prefecture, Japan, when a tunnel collapse, attributed to reckless mining practices, buried 22 workers, including 11 Koreans and 11 Japanese.

Nii Hiroharu's print, "Nanatsudate no Rakuban" (The Collapse of Nanatsudate), depicts victims pleading for rescue from Japanese gendarmes. Professor Kim Jeong-hoon of Jeonnam Science University argues that the artwork conveys not just passive pleas for help but also the intense anger and demand for human dignity felt by the families of the Korean victims. He interprets the scene as an active protest against being forced into dangerous conditions, questioning why they were driven into such hazardous tunnels.

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The remains of 22 people buried alive / Are still as they are today.

Seibe Yoshio's poem, "The remains of 22 people buried alive / Are still as they are today," is seen by Kim as symbolizing not only the physical inability to recover the bodies but also the incomplete historical memory and unresolved issues of responsibility. He advocates for building a shared memory between Korea and Japan to re-establish human dignity from a contemporary perspective.

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This passage symbolizes not only the physical situation where the bodies could not be recovered but also the incomplete historical memory and the issue of responsibility.

Further supporting this interpretation is another print by Nii Hiroharu titled "Struggling Korean People," featured in the 1981 woodblock print collection "Hanaoka Story." This artwork portrays Koreans protesting unfair treatment at the mine office. Chatani Juroku, president of the Akita Prefecture Historical Education Association, commented that the figures in "Nanatsudate no Rakuban" are not just grasping a gendarme's arm but are holding onto the very relationship that demands a human response, even in their final moments.

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What the Korean laborers are holding onto is not just the arm of a Japanese gendarme, but the relationship itself, which demands a human response until the very last moment.