Quest for redemption and reconciliation

The Daily Yomiuri, Tokyo

When in 1964 Takashi Nagase returned to a cemetery close to Kanchanaburi Station, about 130 kilometers northeast from Bangkok, he stood before a cross and prayed.

"I felt as if my guilty feelings were evaporating -- feelings I'd kept inside for 20 years. That experience was the start of my mission," he said.

The cemetery holds the graves of about 7,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) killed during World War II. Nagase had joined the war at its height. At that time, the Imperial Japanese Army was constructing the Thai-Burma Railway to secure a land supply line to the war zone.

The railway was built by POWs from Australia, Britain, and the Netherlands, and Asian slave laborers, who are believed to have totaled 300,000.

It is estimated that 73,000 people died from malaria, dysentery and other diseases due to hard work, poor sanitary conditions and lack of nutrition.

As an interpreter, Nagase sometimes was obliged to be present at scenes of torture during interrogation.

After being repatriated to Japan, Nagase eventually opened a private English-language school in his native Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.

But soon after opening the school, he began to suffer fits, which made it difficult for him to breathe. He was diagnosed with autonomic ataxia, a nervous disorder that was an after effect of the war.

The 1964 return to Kanchanaburi not only rescued him, but made him think more and more of reconciliation.

His first act was to invite students from Thailand to study in Japan. Then in 1976, Nagase met 23 former POWs who had worked on the Bridge over the River Kwai. The former POWs agreed to meet him despite strong opposition from groups of former British POWs.

The historic reunion was reported across the world and led to more reconciliations.

In 1986, Nagase built a temple called the River Kwai Peace Temple near the bridge. The construction was made possible with the royalties from the translation of books by former POWs and his own memoirs.

The same year, he set up the River Kwai Peace Foundation to assist the children of the poor families and of minority tribes in the mountains.

His present project is building a Japanese-language school in Kanchanaburi and getting the Bridge on the River Kwai designated a World Heritage Site.

This year, Nagase turned 87. He said with a smile: "I think I still have things to do."