MORIOKA, Japan - About a decade after Japan's defeat in World War II, Yoriko Miyazaki finally learned how her father had died after the family was separated in Manchuria.
The account still haunts the 89-year-old, reinforcing her view that war is futile.
When she was 17, a letter from a man claiming to know the fate of her father, Masashi, revealed he had been shot dead by the Chinese Communist Party army in December 1946.
Miyazaki, who lives in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, spent her early childhood in Manchuria, in what is now northeastern China, after moving there around 1941 to join her father, a police officer who had been stationed there alone.
She remembers playing with local children, even during the region's bitterly cold winters.
In 1944, she returned to Japan ahead of the rest of her family to attend school, staying with her grandparents in Iwate Prefecture.
The following summer, as the war came to an end, she overheard adults whispering that Japanese women and children who remained in Manchuria would be abducted.
In 1946, she received news that her mother, Chiyo, had repatriated to Moji Port in Kitakyushu, southwestern Japan, with Miyazaki's two younger brothers.
Overjoyed, she rushed to the station nearest her grandparents' home to meet them. But she did not recognize her mother at first.
Dressed in rags and with her hair growing back after being shaved, Chiyo looked so different that Miyazaki had trouble identifying her.
Meanwhile, there was still no news of Masashi, who had remained in Manchuria. As she worked to raise three children, Chiyo would often say, "When Papa comes home, we'll tell him about everything we've been through," as if trying to reassure herself.
About a decade after the war ended, the letter finally answered the question that had haunted the family since they were separated.
The man who wrote about the death of Masashi also said he had gone to the site hoping to bring back something that could serve as a keepsake for the family but found that stray dogs had already devoured Masashi's body.
The letter came as a shock, but after years without any clues, it also brought Miyazaki a sense of relief. Her father's death was officially confirmed based on the account.
During a high school field trip to Hokkaido, where the man lived, Miyazaki and her teacher went to meet him and hear his account firsthand. It was then that her father's death truly sank in.
After that, her mother began speaking about what she had experienced from the end of the war until their return to Japan, revealing memories she had kept buried for years.
She told her daughter about women left behind in Manchuria who suffered sexual violence at the hands of Soviet soldiers and later took their own lives.
Chiyo also revealed that there were nights when she shaved her head and smeared herself with excrement from a pit latrine in an effort to protect herself.
"I was doing everything I could to protect my children," she said.
Miyazaki spent many sleepless nights before gradually coming to terms with what happened.
Reflecting on armed conflicts around the world, Miyazaki said, "It is dangerous to think of war in terms of what is gained or lost."
While attention often focuses on the number of people killed or injured, she urged people not to forget that "every victim had a life of their own."
"War casts a shadow over people's lives that never truly goes away," Miyazaki said. "I want people around the world to understand how senseless war is."
