To smoothly separate laundry from the lump of the laundry by providing a holding instrument to be moved in the direction of getting closer to/away from the lump of the laundry and a truck for loading the laundry at the time of use in a laundry separation device for separating the lump of the washed laundry at the time of cleaning.

When a start button is turned on, an air pressure inside a cylinder 17 is released by opening a solenoid valve first and a holding mechanism 11 supported at the tip of a flat belt 7 is lowered by gravity. When the holding mechanism is grounded onto the lump of the laundry, by simultaneously stopping the rotation of an encoder, the sequence of lifting the laundry is operated next. As a result, a pair of small-sized jaws 12 are moved from an open state to a closed state by the operation of the cylinder incorporated in the holding mechanism 11 and a part of the laundry is held. Then, the cylinder 17 is driven, the holding mechanism 11 is elevated through a flat cable 7 and entanglement is eliminated by jetted air from an air jet 14 at an elevated end.