‘Through the gaps in the door, I saw Arrow Cross members leading people to the Danube bank to be shot to death. I also witnessed that those who could no longer walk were shot dead then and there, on the street.’

The Japan-Korea reconciliation is good news for both countries, the USA and the free world, and bad news for China, whose aggressive and threatening behaviour and wolf warrior diplomacy helped catalyse the process. Strengthening the trilateral security and military cooperation between the USA, Japan and Korea is definitely not something Beijing wanted to achieve with its aggressive posture. What we can expect from Beijing is now to try to drive a wedge between the newly found friends.

Many of those deported did not even make it alive to their destination, but died on the way to the Soviet Union. These people were not even registered, so there is no information about how many they were. The purpose of their abduction was to rebuild the Soviet infrastructure that had been practically destroyed in the war, so to use them for free slave labour.