War and oppression leave not only legacies of death and suffering, but throughout the ages the sorrow they have also inspired songs.

Such music has been a driving force for Miyuki Ishibashi. Born on the Korean Peninsula in 1944 to a Japanese colonial family, she is no stranger to suffering. For many years now, she has devoted herself to singing Russian songs of the oppressed that had been banned.

"No more children like me should be created" by a country's war against other peoples and suppression of its own people, said Ishibashi, 59, who performs more than 20 times a year, mainly in Tokyo.