Italian writer retraces steps at Japan temple her family were detained at in WWII (Pt. 2)

TOYOTA, Aichi — This June, Italian writer Dacia Maraini visited Kosaiji temple of the Soto Zen Buddhist school in this central Japan city. Wearing sunglasses, she climbed up the steps surrounded by greenery that lead to the temple’s main building. At times, she paused to take in the sounds of a nearby stream and the chirps of birds. It was as though she was recalling memories of days long ago at this very temple.

This is the second part of a Mainichi Shimbun series about now 87-year-old Maraini, who spent years of her childhood in an internment camp in Japan during World War II.

Recognizing each other as human

During WWII, the Aichi Prefecture city of Nagoya, which was a major center for military production, became a target for air strikes by the U.S. military. A carpet bombing in March of 1945 laid waste to the city’s center, turning it into charred earth. Maraini and her cultural anthropologist father Fosco (1912-2004) were among the families that had been rounded up at an internment camp in Nagoya, and Kosaiji — then within the village of Ishino, Aichi Prefecture — was where they were evacuated to.

“Da-chan!” called out a woman from the temple’s main building. Without words, the two exchanged a hug. The woman, 88-year-old Keiko Kano, lived alongside Maraini here 79 years ago.

Kano, who was the granddaughter of the temple’s then head priest, had quickly become friends with Maraini, and the two played together by kicking stones and with beanbags. She still remembers the Italian folk song Maraini taught her.

On Aug. 15, 1945, Maraini’s family listened along with the people of the village to the broadcast of Emperor Hirohito’s declaration of surrender. Some among them could not understand it very well due to the emperor’s use of old words. Her father, who had researched Japan, taught them what Emperor Hirohito meant. The villagers then gave the Marainis and others celebratory red rice, telling them, “You are no longer prisoners. The war is over.”

Looking back on the months the family spent at the temple before moving to Tokyo that September, Maraini said, “I still remember the emotion of being treated as a friend, not an enemy. How comforting that was. We were able to transcend politics, ideology and being foreigners, and recognize each other as human beings.”

At a cemetery on the mountain behind the temple stands a cenotaph dedicated to Fosco Maraini. No matter how cruel his experiences were, Maraini never blamed Japan. Thanks to his interactions with the villagers here, after the war he acted as a bridge between the country and his native Italy in his capacities as cultural anthropologist and photographer. Before passing away at the age of 91, he asked for a portion of his remains to be interred here.

Some of Fosco Maraini’s hair and fingernails are entombed at the memorial site which overlooks the village’s rich natural scenery, along with his words: “I’ll send a message of no wars to the earth.”

As Dacia Maraini ceremonially poured water on her father’s epitaph, the sunshine beamed down and glimmered on those inscribed words.

(Japanese original by Kohei Shinkai, Nagoya News Department)