[ad_1]
At the end of World War II, during Japan’s brutal Battle of Okinawa, a group of American soldiers took up residence in the royal palace after fleeing from the battle. When the palace steward returned after the war, he later said, the treasure was gone.
Some of these valuables were discovered decades later in the attic of a World War II veteran’s Massachusetts home, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not reveal the veteran’s identity in announcing the discovery last week. I didn’t.
A veteran’s family has discovered a stash of vibrant paintings and pottery. A large fragile scroll. After his death last year, an intricate hand-drawn map was discovered and the discovery was reported to the authorities’ art crime team.
Jeffrey Kelley, special agent and art theft coordinator in the bureau’s Boston field office, took charge of the case and took the artifacts to the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The recovered items were returned to Okinawa in January, and an official return ceremony is scheduled for next month in Japan.
“Seeing the scroll unfold before your eyes is a very exciting moment. You are truly witnessing history and witnessing something that many people have not seen for a long time.” he said.
Experts from the Smithsonian Institution have proven that these items are authentic artifacts from the former Ryukyu Kingdom, a 450-year-old dynasty that ruled Okinawa as a vassal state of China’s Ming Dynasty, and the FBI has sent the items to the U.S. Handed over to Army Civil and Psychological Operations. Instructions. Cultural property experts returned valuable items to Okinawa.
“Very few items from that kingdom have survived,” said Travis Seifman, associate professor at Ritsumeikan University’s Art Research Center. “Recovering heritage, reclaiming cultural assets, reclaiming knowledge of our history is a really big deal for many people in Okinawa.”
The Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa from the early 15th century until 1879, when Japan annexed the kingdom as a prefecture.
It houses 22 artifacts from the 18th and 19th centuries, including two portraits of Ryukyu kings, two of the 100 or so paintings known to have survived the war. “This is an incredible discovery,” he said.
Officials said a typed letter written by a U.S. soldier stationed in the Pacific Theater during World War II was found with the artifacts, indicating they were taken from Okinawa. It is said that
The letter described a failed attempt to smuggle the artifacts from Japan and sell them to a U.S. museum, according to Col. Andrew Scott DeJesus, a cultural heritage conservation officer who accompanied the artifacts to Okinawa. That’s what it means.
Col. DeJesus said a veteran serving in Europe discovered the artifact near a trash can, recognized its value and brought it back to his home in Massachusetts.
“Japanese swords, swords, things worn by military personnel, those were always acceptable,” Col. DeJesus said, explaining how American military commanders approved the spoils of military personnel on the battlefield. did.
During World War II, cultural heritage investigators known as Monument Officers traveled to Europe tracking down millions of works of art, books, and other valuables stolen by the Nazis. Colonel DeJesus said there were officers stationed in Japan, “but the looting of heritage sites was less well known,” adding that Americans were not the only ones removing items from combat zones.
“Imperial Japan was doing it all over the place. So was the Nazis, so was the Soviet Union. It was done systematically,” he said.
The Battle of Okinawa, described as “the costliest battle in the Pacific lasting 82 days,” was one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War II. Approximately 100,000 Japanese civilians and 60,000 soldiers were killed. More than 12,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, and Marines died during the three-month battle. It wasn’t just art and other valuables that were stolen. Some researchers say that American soldiers received skulls and other body parts as trophies.
[Afterthewarendedin1945MaehiraNobuyoshiwhowasacourtbutlerreturnedtothepalacetoexaminethefamilyheirloomsincludingcrownssilkrobesroyalportraitsandotherartifactsandothersHewashiddeninatrenchwithinthepalacegroundsHefoundthepalacereducedtoashesandthetrencheslootedhesaidinanacademicpaperpublishedin2018[1945年に戦争が終わった後、宮廷執事だった前平望慶氏は、王冠、絹のローブ、王室の肖像画、その他の工芸品を含む家宝を調べるために宮殿に戻り、他の人たちとともに宮殿の敷地内の塹壕に隠していた。。彼は宮殿が灰になり、塹壕が略奪されたのを発見した、と2018年に出版された学術論文で述べた。
Among the loot was a collection of Ryukyu folk songs from several centuries ago called “Omorosaushi.”
The U.S. government repatriated the Omorosausi to Okinawa in 1953 after U.S. military commander Karl W. Sternfeldt took the spoils to Harvard University for identification.
In 1954, the United States joined dozens of other countries to sign the Hague Convention, a United Nations-mediated treaty for the protection of cultural property in times of armed conflict.
Still, Col. DeJesse, who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, said part of his and other cultural heritage officers’ jobs is training military commanders and soldiers who are unaware of their duties. He said that.
“That’s a big problem. We advise them, ‘Hey, don’t touch it, don’t lift it.’ It’s someone else’s. “Just like you don’t want your church or museum to be looted,” he said.
The Japanese government entered other missing Ryukyu Kingdom items into the FBI’s national stolen goods file in 2001. They include black-and-white photographs depicting a collection of Okinawa’s important cultural heritage, which Professor Seifman says is “often all there is to it.” The survival of places and objects lost or destroyed in World War II.
Among the items listed was a scroll found in the attic of a Massachusetts veteran.
The veterans’ families, who the FBI has granted anonymity to, will not be prosecuted.
“It’s not necessarily about prosecuting and putting someone in jail,” Kelly said. “A lot of what we do is to ensure that stolen property is returned to its rightful owner, even if it’s generations away.”
[ad_2]
Source link
