Resource Booklet: The Kanto Massacre Testimonies

This resource booklet serves as a powerful educational tool for teachers seeking to integrate the history of the Kantō Massacre into their curriculum. By providing translated firsthand testimonies from Korean and Japanese survivors and witnesses, it offers an authentic and accessible primary source that allows students to engage critically with historical events, racial persecution, and state violence.

How Teachers Can Use This Resource

1. Historical Inquiry & Primary Source Analysis

   • Teachers can guide students through close readings of the testimonies, encouraging them to analyze language, tone, and perspective.

   • Students can compare different accounts to understand how memory and historical narrative shape our understanding of past injustices.

2. Cross-Curricular Connections

   • In history classes, the booklet can be used to examine Japanese imperialism, the impact of colonialism, and the consequences of state-sponsored xenophobia.

   • In ethnic studies or social justice courses, students can explore parallels between the Kantō Massacre and other racialized violence, such as the internment of Japanese Americans, anti-immigrant policies, or modern-day hate crimes.

   • In language arts, students can analyze the power of testimony as a literary form and discuss how storytelling preserves marginalized histories.

3. Encouraging Critical Thinking

   • Educators can use discussion prompts to challenge students to reflect on the ways governments and societies remember—or erase—histories of violence.

   • Assigning research projects on historical revisionism can help students identify how political and social forces shape collective memory.

4. Promoting Empathy & Social Awareness

   • By reading survivor testimonies, students can develop a deeper emotional connection to history, fostering empathy for those who have experienced systemic oppression.

   • This resource can serve as a call to action for students to engage in broader conversations about justice, reparations, and historical accountability.

A Call to Educators

This booklet is designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that teachers can incorporate it into their classrooms with ease. While we have preserved the integrity of historical language, the translation remains clear and comprehensible, making it suitable for a wide range of learners.

As educators, we have a responsibility to ensure that tragedies like the Kantō Massacre are neither forgotten nor repeated. This resource empowers teachers to create meaningful, historically grounded discussions that challenge students to think critically about oppression, resistance, and the role of historical memory in shaping our world today.

Use this form to access the script of annotated Kanto Massacre survivor and witness testimonies, created by Hosenka no Ie in Tokyo for the Arakawa Riverside Reading of the Testimonies commemoration on September 02, 2023, and translated by members of our team.

If you fill out the form and receive a page that says "You need access," please click the blue text that says "Open the document directly" and you will be able to see the testimonies.

フォームに記入して「アクセスが必要です」というページが表示された場合は、「文書を直接開く」という青い文字をクリックすると、証言が表示されます。