Abstract
The Siberian Internment was a forced migration of over 600,000 Japanese servicemen and civilians into Soviet labor camps following the brief Soviet-Japanese War in northeast Asia during the last weeks of World War II.
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- 1.
For histories of the Siberian Internment, see Sherzod Muminov, Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022); Andrew E. Barshay, The Gods Left First: The Captivity and Repatriation of Japanese POWs in Northeast Asia, 1945–1956 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013).
- 2.
Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
- 3.
On the repatriations to postwar Japan, see Lori Watt, When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009).
- 4.
Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan.
- 5.
Takemae Eiji, The Allied Occupation of Japan, trans. Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann (New York: Continuum, 2003), 451.
- 6.
Muminov, Eleven Winters of Discontent, 26–27.
- 7.
Narita Ryūichi, “‘Hikiage’ to ‘yokuryū,’” in Teikoku no sensō keiken — Iwanami kōza ajia taiheiyō sensō 4., ed. by Kurasawa Aiko et al. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2006), 179–208.
- 8.
Katō Kiyofumi, “Dainihon teikoku” hōkai: higashi ajia no 1945 nen (Tokyo: Chūō kōron, 2009).
- 9.
Muminov, Eleven Winters of Discontent (in my research).
- 10.
I borrow the term “GUPVI archipelago” from Stefan Karner, Im Archipel GUPVI: Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion, 1941–1956 (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995). I refer to the Russian translation, published as Stefan Karner, Arkhipelag GUPVI: Plen i internirovanie v Sovetskom Soiuze, 1941–1956, trans. O. Aspisova (Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2002).
- 11.
For an analysis of Japanese military diaries, see Aaron William Moore, Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
- 12.
V.A. Gavrilov and E.L. Katasonova, eds, Iaponskie voennoplennye v SSSR, 1945–1956, [hereafter Iaponskie voennoplennye] (Moscow: Demokratiia, 2013), 12.
- 13.
Futaba Kaname, Shiberia horyo no shuki (Tokyo: Daigensha, 1947), 23–24.
- 14.
Takasugi Ichirō, Kyokkō no kageni: shiberia furyoki, Iwanami gendai bunko 12th ed. (Iwanami shoten, 2011 (1950)), 182–183.
- 15.
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF), fond (f.) 66, opis’ (op.) 3191, delo (d.) 23, listy (l.) 117–119, in Iaponskie voennoplennye, 26–27.
- 16.
Despite its ubiquity and importance for the Soviet system of managing human resources, it is difficult to confidently argue that such a folder was created for every Japanese POW. In the initial months of the internment the Soviet state had neither the time nor the resources to thoroughly document the details of each captive—consequently the existence of a captive often warranted no more than a name, date of birth, and the date of entry into the camp written in the camp registers.
- 17.
For details of interrogations, see Uchimura Gōsuke, Iki isogu: Sutārin goku no nihonjin, rev. ed. (Tokyo: Chūkō Bunko, 1985).
- 18.
Takasugi, Kyokkō no kageni, 183.
- 19.
“Proekt Postanovleniia Soveta Ministrov SSSR, predstavlennyi rukovodstvu strany…,” 20 December 1949, GARF, f. 9401, op. 2, d. 236, l. 319.
- 20.
“Soobshchenie TASS ob okonchanii repatriatsii iz Sovetskogo Soiuza iaponskikh voennoplennykh,” Izvestiia, 22 April 1950.
- 21.
Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum YouTube channel, “Hikiage o sasaeta hitobito no monogatari 4: Kitada Toshi san,” 21 May 2020, Video, 5:55. https://youtu.be/y7LEw0Vxf6c.
- 22.
“Soren yokuryū no ‘nihon shimbun’ kōkai,” Tokushima shimbun, August 2, 1985, quoted in Sugamo purizun / Shiberia nihon shimbun, ed. Chaen Yoshio (Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1986), 142.
- 23.
Shikoku Hikaru, online interview by author, 17 September 2021.
- 24.
Katō Tetsurō, “Hōshoku shita akuma” no sengo: 731 butai to Futaki Hideo (Tokyo: Kadensha, 2017).
- 25.
Sherzod Muminov, “From Imperial Revenants to Cold War Victims: ‘Red Repatriates’ from the Soviet Union and the Making of the New Japan, 1949–1952.” Cold War History 17:4 (2017): 425–442.
- 26.
See Yoshikuni Igarashi, Homecomings: The Belated Return of Japan’s Lost Soldiers (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), for a broad analysis of former soldiers returning late to Japan from the former empire’s faraway outposts.
- 27.
For a detailed analysis of Soviet efforts to ensure the health and wellbeing of the Japanese and other POWs, see Muminov, Eleven Winters of Discontent, Chapter 4: “Cold, Hunger, and Hard Labor: Japanese Experiences in the Soviet Camps,” 111–148.
References
Primary Sources
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF), Podolsk, Russia
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF), fond (f.) 66, opis’ (op.) 3191, delo (d.) 23, listy (l.) 117–119.
State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), Moscow, Russia
F. 9401, op. 2, d. 236, l. 319, GARF, “Proekt Postanovleniia Soveta Ministrov SSSR, predstavlennyi rukovodstvu strany…,” December 20, 1949.
Memorials and Diaries
Futaba, Kaname. Shiberia horyo no shuki. Tokyo: Daigensha, 1947.
Takasugi, Ichirō. Kyokkō no kageni: shiberia furyoki. Iwanami gendai bunko 12th ed. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2011 (1950).
Newspapers
Izvestiia
Tokushima Shinbun
Videos
Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum YouTube channel. “Hikiage o sasaeta hitobito no monogatari 4: Kitada Toshi san.” YouTube video, 5:55. May 21, 2020. https://youtu.be/y7LEw0Vxf6c.
Secondary Sources
Barshay, Andrew E. The Gods Left First: The Captivity and Repatriation of Japanese POWs in Northeast Asia, 1945–1956. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.
Chaen, Yoshio, ed. Sugamo purizun / Shiberia nihon shimbun. Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, 1986.
Gavrilov, V. A. and E. L. Katasonova, eds. Iaponskie voennoplennye v SSSR, 1945–1956. Moscow: Demokratiia, 2013.
Igarashi, Yoshikuni. Homecomings: The Belated Return of Japan’s Lost Soldiers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
Karner, Stefan. Arkhipelag GUPVI: Plen i Internirovanie v Sovetskom Soiuze, 1941–1956. Translated by O. Aspisova. Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 2002.
———. Im Archipel GUPVI: Kriegsgefangenschaft Und Internierung in Der Sowjetunion, 1941–1956. Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1995.
Katō, Kiyofumi. “Dainihon teikoku” hōkai: higashi ajia no 1945 nen. Tokyo: Chūō kōron, 2009.
Katō, Tetsurō. “Hōshoku shita akuma” no sengo: 731 butai to Futaki Hideo. Tokyo: Kadensha, 2017.
Moore, Aaron William. Writing War: Soldiers Record the Japanese Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Postwar Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Muminov, Sherzod. “From Imperial Revenants to Cold War Victims: ‘Red Repatriates’ from the Soviet Union and the Making of the New Japan, 1949–1952.” Cold War History 17, no. 4 (2017): 425–442.
———. Eleven Winters of Discontent: The Siberian Internment and the Making of a New Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022.
Narita, Ryūichi. “‘Hikiage’ to ‘yokuryū.’” In Teikoku no sensō keiken — Iwanami kōza ajia taiheiyō sensō 4. Edited by Kurasawa Aiko et al. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2006.
Takemae, Eiji. The Allied Occupation of Japan. Translated by Robert Ricketts and Sebastian Swann. New York: Continuum, 2003.
Uchimura, Gōsuke. Iki Isogu: Sutārin Goku No Nihonjin. Rev. Tokyo: Chūkō Bunko, 1985.
Watt, Lori. When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009.
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Muminov, S. (2022). Documenting the Siberian Odyssey of Japanese Former Servicemen and Civilians, 1945–1956. In: Yamamoto, T. (eds) Documenting Mobility in the Japanese Empire and Beyond. New Directions in East Asian History. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6391-8_9
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