Japanese war orphans visit graves of adoptive Chinese parents

Ikeda Sumie sheds tears during the visit on July 13, 2015. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

Abandoned by their birth parents during the hasty retreat at the end of World War II in 1945, the orphans, now over 70 years old, were taken in and raised by the very Chinese residents of those northeastern provinces who spent so many years suffering at the hands of the waifs' parents.

As WWII and the War of the Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was coming to end, more than 4,000 children were simply abandoned by their fleeing parents. Most of them relocated to Japan after China and Japan normalized relations in 1972.