Densho Digital Archive - Michiko Kornhauser Interview (denshovh-kmichiko

<Begin Segment 10>

SG: So when you went back to school --

MK: After the war?

SG: Yeah, how was it different than before or during the war?

MK: Well, after the war, the war ended on August the 15th, and you know, September came, we had to go back to school. The school was bombed and absolutely nothing there. And then we went to school because the teachers said we had to go to school, so we went, and then everything was destroyed, and the teacher asked us to collect burnt roof tile which we did. We didn't know why. Then the teachers asked us to look for the nails, large nails, bent or not, nails. Then that became the pencil and the roof tiles became the notebooks, so we studied using those. And then we used to call it aozora kyoitsu, under the blue sky. So fortunately, it was not raining, so we studied. But then I had the disaster because I sat on the ant hill, and I knew how horrible that is now. So now when I sit, I'm always careful where I sit. You know, you learn things. And then I remember one day when I went to school, and during the recess, I started poking around the area, then I saw a flower sprouting out of just completely destroyed building, just completely destroyed, and that gave me a really nice feeling, happy feeling, that my goodness, something is sprouting, new life is starting. I remember that. That is the best feeling I had after the war, going to school. But otherwise, we studied no matter what because we are taught to study. We are supposed to study no matter what. And then my mother always said, "We have nothing, but Americans took everything from you, from us. But they didn't take our head; they didn't take our heart so that all you can do without money is to study." So I listened to my mother on that.

SG: Did the school system change with the influence of the Allies or the Marshall Plan?

MK: Yes, indeed. We were told that men and women are created equal, and we have the equal opportunity to study. That's what we were told, that MacArthur did that, and then we fell in love with MacArthur. Anyway, he's handsome to begin with. Whatever he did, he was like a god to us, better than the emperor, you know. The emperor was supposed to be god, but my goodness. Then we are supposed to become blind if we looked at the emperor's face. That's the way we were taught during the war, but nobody got blind, so, the government always lies. That's my feeling as a child. And then that was the good thing. And then also one day, I don't know which grade it was, by that time, we are in some kind of classroom, we received shoe boxes, each of us. And when we opened it, we found little things that we really needed like pencils, pencil sharpener, little notebooks. Paper was so precious. We didn't have paper. Paper was so precious, notebooks. And then as I dug into the boxes, I found little, many things. At the bottom was a kewpie doll, about this big and had a cape around it. I looked at it. You know, my dolls are all gone by that time. And then my mother, my father bought me German dolls that I really liked, but it was gone for some reason during the war. Maybe my mother took it to pawn shop to change it for money. I don't know because my mother always took things to pawn shop. When I looked at it, I just smiled, and that became my treasure. As I grew up when I was lonesome, I remember I used to hide, just squeeze this. And then the boxes came from Wisconsin. And then some teacher had the idea to make these shoe boxes for the children in Japan, and then every one of us received shoe boxes. We didn't know English, we didn't know how to say thank you, but I remember how grateful I was to people in Wisconsin. And then we didn't know where Wisconsin was. But the moment we'd learn, the first time I saw the map of America, I looked for Wisconsin. And just the other day, I wrote to the newspaper, Milwaukee Journal in Wisconsin and then writing about this, and I said, "Please publish this." And I talked to whoever in charge of the division at the newspaper company, and he said, he interviewed me a little bit and then said okay, "This will be good news. I'll put it in the newspaper." But I don't know what happened. I forgot to call him back and say, "Hey, did you publish it?" But I wanted to say thank you to people in Wisconsin because, because of that, I think, and also the GIs I met who gave me chewing gum and the other GIs who gave me candies and so on that I didn't hate Americans anymore. In fact, I really respected Americans after I received this shoe box. How could you do that? We're trying to kill them, and we're fighting against each other, yet they did this to us. I thought America must be a great place, and I wanted to go when I grow up.

SG: And this was, you were in middle school?

MK: I think elementary school still, yes.