HASTING PARK STORIES "Mary Ohara"
She spent her early teens in a Hasting Park.
She said <When I was 12, the war started… It was Sunday, December 7, 1941, and my mother and father were afraid that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. And I said, "I'm Canadian. I have nothing to do with that.">
My name is Mary Ohara
The 83-year-old Burnaby resident was one of more than 20,000 Japanese Canadians who were branded "enemy aliens" and sent to internment camps during World War II.
Her father emigrated from Wakayama to Victoria in 1905 before moving with the family to Galliano Island, where he worked as a cod fisherman.
Her life there with her family was very fulfilling and happy.
The end of happiness, the beginning of patience
Her happy days ended when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in World War II.She said, "The next day. When I went to school, most of the children didn't talk to me because their parents told them not to associate with Japanese children. "
She was then ordered to go to Hastings Park.
She left her father and older brother and went there with her mother, younger brother and sister.
Days at Hastings Park
Her days at Hastings Park were a series of hardships. For example,
There was only one curtain between the toilet.
Her sheets were sprayed with a toxic spray to keep bugs away.
The room where the bed was placed was poorly maintained, and the sheets were filled with bird droppings every day.
There was no curtain in the shower room.
The beds were made of straw and were inhabited by bed bugs, which bit her on a daily basis.
As you can see from this, life there was humiliating with no privacy.
Mumps
She says the hardest part of living in Hasting Park was when she got the mumps.
She was quarantined in a dungeon for ten days. A dungeon is an underground fodder storage without windows. Children under the age of 5 and 6 were crying for their mothers. Not enough nurses came.
Parents
Father
Of all her ordeals, the death of her father hurt the most. In accordance with Buddhist custom, the government refused to cremate him. The camp's old men and teenage boys carried his corpse up a hillside and burned firewood. The next day she and her mother picked up bones with chopsticks.I think it's very hard and sad not to be able to properly bury a loved one.
Mother
Her mother earned 10 or 25 cents from people using the masseuse techniques she learned from her grandmother. And she put it in a can and kept it for when she needed it.Her mother was very smart and brave.
Finaly
"Most of us survivors didn't want to talk about what happened. But when my children were born, I felt I had to tell the young people who will be the leaders of tomorrow what happened in Canada."
We must respect their feelings and keep Canada a good place.
Sauce
この記事が気に入ったらサポートをしてみませんか？