When Japan surrendered in August 1945, effectively ending World War II, approximately 350,000 Japanese and a large number of Koreans, thought to number between 20,000 and 43,000, were left behind on the southern half of an elongated island that had been called Karafuto during Japan's colonial period. Most of the Japanese were eventually evacuated from the Soviet territory now known as Sakhalin, but the Koreans and their Japanese spouses were left and unable to leave for decades. The Russians called these war-displaced Koreans “Koreyskiy.”
In March 1996, I had my first major project as a photographer travelling in Russia, and hoped to capture images of a country still in the throes of transitional chaos. I stopped in Sakhalin, where my journey began.

I saw the flicker of candlelight on a street corner on that freezing day. Inside a vinyl-covered wooden-framed box were flowers, illuminated by a candle flame. An old woman, whose faced appeared frozen, sat beside them.
In those days, elderly Koreyskiy women could be found selling flowers at the bazaar and along the streets in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. When they learned that I was from Japan, they spoke to me in Japanese, explaining how hard their daily lives were. Just brief conversations on the street drove home how deeply and radically their lives had been shaped by Japan. I felt a twinge of guilt. I wanted to know more about them and understand what was in their hearts.
I started randomly walking the streets hoping to see them. But when I actually stood in front of them, I could feel myself stiffen, unable to start a conversation. Why did they remain on the island? Unable to imagine why, I lacked confidence to speak. I left Sakhalin without even trying to understand what had happened in their lives.
My memory is crystal clear because of a chance conversation that was never pursued. When I was walking down the street, I heard someone speak Japanese. I looked and saw two elderly women walking in front of me. “Are you Japanese?” I asked, feeling lonely from traveling on my own. “No, we’re Korean. We came here before the war,” one replied.
I was astounded-50 years after the war, they were here speaking Japanese on a daily basis. I don't simply mean that they were able to speak the language but rather that they continued to use it for some reason unknown to me, which I wanted to understand.
If our history is an accumulation of memories, it may be buried by the accumulation of new ones. In 2010-14 years after my first visit-I finally took action, which I couldn't back then. It was time to explore the hearts of those women who surely had ambivalent feelings about a bitter history.

Tatsuru Nitta