The End of the Japanese Colonial Period

By this time in the Far East, Japan had already begun (in 1937) its invasion of China. With the onset of hostilities against America in December 1941, World War II emerged as an Armageddon war. Japan inhibited every cultural activity defining the Korean people as a race. Korean language newspapers and magazines were shut down, and high level officials in the Korean Linguistic Society were not only arrested but also brutally tortured. The use of Japanese language became compulsory and Koreans were compelled to take Japanese names. The study of Korean history was labeled as dangerous, and the Korean people were forced to participate in Shinto rituals. Approximately 700,000 Korean men were taken to Japan and set to hard labor, and countless young women with virginity intact were taken to the front lines of battle and provided to soldiers as prostitutes. Other young Korean men were conscripted into the Japanese army. At home, Japan was facing an emergency situation as the war progressed. The school that Sun Myung Moon was attending shortened its academic schedule by six months. He graduated in September 1943, and returned to Heuksok-dong in Seoul by the end of that year. However, while working for Nokdojo electrical engineering company, he was arrested for his anti-colonialist activities in Tokyo by the Kyung-gi Province Japanese police, notorious for their cruelty, and was badly beaten. The surrender of Japan in August 1945, following the first use of atomic weapons in history -against Hiroshima and Nagasaki-hastened the end of World War II, which had exacted a toll in blood and tears from so many peoples. On that day, August 15, the day when everyone hugged and rolled on the ground in delight in the hot sun, one young man alone in a small back room, rather than shout with joy, wept while embracing Heaven, and contemplated the future of the Korean people. This was Sun Myung Moon.