During the Pacific War (Greater East Asia War), many POWs worked in the coal mines (Orio POW Camp) in Mizumaki Town, Onga District. Many Dutch POWs were interned at Mizumaki, and 53 Dutch prisoners died. After the war, just before GHQ’s(Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) war crimes investigation, Nippon Tan Takamatsu, which used Dutch POWs as labor, hurriedly erected a cross.

The friendship between Dutch ex-POWs and Mizumaki Town

Dolph Winkler, a Dutchman who was a prisoner of war during the war, is still suffering from flashbacks even 40 years after the war. He consulted a psychiatric counselor who advised him to go there and face the source of his suffering, and in 1985 he decided to visit Mizumaki Town. Mr. Winkler was led to the dilapidated cross by the writer Eidai Hayashi. When they went to the town for advice, they could not get help, probably because the cross had religious overtones.

Afterward, they went to Shoji Kurokawa for advice. Shoji told his older brother Hiroshi about this. He said, “It’s not good that no one does anything about the cross even though they live in Mizumaki. Let’s do it by we brothers.

The “Tower of the Cross” for former Dutch prisoners of war was to be managed by the Kurokawa brothers. The dilapidated “Tower of the Cross” needed repair. One man who own a construction company said, “My brother also died in the war, so let me do this as a memorial service,” and the cross was repaired. The gravestones are engraved with the names of 53 people who died in Mizumaki and 871 Dutch people who died in camps across Japan.

Since 1987, a wreath-laying ceremony has been held every year. Mr. Winkler has visited Mizumaki Town many times. Many people from the Netherlands visited the Tower of the Cross. People who had strong anti-Japanese feelings towards the enemy country Japan, former prisoners of war and their bereaved families, people born to Japanese and Dutch women during the war, and people who were forced to live in concentration camps in Indonesia during the war. Many Dutch people, including people related to the Dutch government, visited Mizumaki Town. The town also began to actively participate and cooperate in the “Tower of the Cross” and exchanges with the Netherlands.

Mr. Winkler didn’t even smile when he first came to Japan. As he interacted with the people of Mizumaki, he gradually began to open up and smile. He also began to interact with the children of Mizumaki. In his will, he requested that his ashes be scattered next to the Tower of the Cross in Mizumaki Town. In 2009, Mr. Winkler and Mr. Hiroshi Kurokawa, who kept protecting the Tower of the Cross, passed away in the same year.

The friendship that Mr. Winkler and Mr. Hiroshi Kurokawa fostered and the “Tower of the Cross” still serves as a bridge to heal the hearts of the Dutch people who still harbor hatred due to the war, and now junior high school students are sent and accepted to homestays every year, and elementary school students An exchange meeting with the Dutch visiting group is being held.