• Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Leper colony Oshima island

  • Leper colonies in Japan? This sounds like an echo from a distant past. But they still exist until today. Their inhabitants have been cured for decades- but remain outcasts. Only in 1996 was the enforced strict isolation lifted by law. Most inhabitants stayed in the fourteen now called sanatoriums where they led a miserable life of isolation, hard labour and inhuman treatment. Today they receive adequate care, housing and medical treatment. A report for GEO Magazin Germany about the last survivors on the island Oshima.

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Hiroshi Nomura lives over 70 years on Oshima

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Dr Hideyo Sogo

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Yoshimi Oochi

    Lives on Oshima since his early teenage years

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Melody "Loreley" as guidance

    Lepra schädigt das Augenlicht

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Emiko Oonishi

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Stranded doll

  • Leper colony in Oshima, Japan

    Takahisa Yamamoto

    Master of pottery

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Housing

  • Leper colony on Oshima/Japan

    Takashi Tojo

  • Leper colony Oshima in Japan

    Boat for Takamatsu