People’s Court--Torment with Hostile Questions
In the Voloshilov camp, there was a large-scale pro-democracy movement ongoing among the Japanese who had been detained. The instigators used spies to find out the people who did not agree with Stalin’s doctrine and held a people’s court in front of everybody. Depending on the level of the criminal act, the punishment was different. The ones with lighter cases were spanked, or a bucket full of water was poured over their heads. The ones with more serious case were sentenced to starvation. Slick Soviet officers from the political department of the Soviet Army just kept watching this from far away, and grinned. They did not make any attempt to stop them.
It was really regretful that such activists among us Japanese wanted to enhance their own privileges in their living environments by fawning before the Soviet leaders. We had a hard time accepting such extreme selfishness in these egoists. They even fought with each other for power inside their own group, attempting to secure better treatment for themselves. They had no idea they were also in such a vulnerable situation: they could be sentenced as resisters and be evicted at any time. That they behaved as if they owned the place happened because they were so selfish and mean-spirited themselves. I felt more and more empty.
Early May, 1946