Kantō Massacre of Koreans
Japanese vigilantes killed thousands of Koreans in the days after the Great Kanto earthquake of September 1923. The earthquake struck at noon on 1 September, when charcoal cooking fires were lit across Tokyo and Yokohama, and the firestorm that followed killed most of the some 105,000 dead — at one open space in Tokyo about 38,000 people were burned to death in a few minutes by a fire whirl. The city's water mains, telegraph and newspapers were destroyed together, which is the condition in which the rumours spread. The stories said that Koreans were poisoning the wells, setting fires and organising a rising. Korea had been annexed in 1910 and the March First Movement of 1919 had been suppressed with several thousand deaths, so the fear had a specific history behind it. Vigilante groups formed within hours, set up checkpoints, and used a shibboleth: passers-by were made to pronounce Japanese phrases with sounds that Korean speakers render differently. Estimates of the dead run from the Japanese government's contemporary figure of some 230 to Korean estimates of over 6,000, with most scholarly figures between two and six thousand. Chinese labourers and Japanese from regional dialect areas were killed as well. The police and the army participated in places, and also protected Koreans in others; martial law was declared partly to stop it. A small number of vigilantes were prosecuted and given light sentences. Japanese governments have declined to acknowledge it officially. The anarchist Ōsugi Sakae, his partner and his six-year-old nephew were killed by military police in the same week, which indicates how far the opportunity was used. Memorial services are held annually in Tokyo and are regularly protested against by people who say the killings did not happen.
- Year: 1923 CE
- Category: Political
