The tragedy that took place after Japan announced its surrender in World War II should not be allowed to fade away. The government needs to speed up efforts to clarify the actual situation of Japanese detained in Siberia and collect remains of the victims.
On Aug. 23, 1945, former Japanese soldiers and others in Manchuria (currently northeastern China) and elsewhere were ordered to be detained by the then Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin.
According to an estimate by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, about 575,000 people were transferred to the former Soviet Union and Mongolia. About 55,000 people are believed to have died from hard labor, starvation and other reasons in those extremely cold regions.
On Sunday, an annual memorial gathering for the victims will be held at the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery for the war dead in Tokyo. The average age of the survivors is nearly 100 years old. It is important to pass on the experiences of their suffering to the next generation.
The responsibility of the Japanese government is stipulated in the law on special measures for Siberian detainees that was enacted in 2010. The law stipulates that the government must provide special benefits to former detainees who have Japanese nationality, and launch a full-fledged probe to get an entire picture of the issue.
It is 10 years since the law came into effect, and its has become clear there are challenges to be addressed.
The ministry is trying to identify the dead by comparing materials provided by Russia and others with those collected by the Japanese side. The number of those identified was 1,572 in fiscal 2010, but the pace largely slowed down with the number dropping to 188 in fiscal 2019. About 15,000 people remain unconfirmed.
Remains of only about 20,000 people have been collected. Last year, it came to light that there had been misconduct in which remains of non-Japanese persons were mistakenly brought back to Japan.
The ministry plans to extend the survey -- which had attached too much importance to Moscow -- to regional cities in Russia and countries that have gained independence from the former Soviet Union, and send its staff out across a wider area. It also intends to strengthen the system to analyze remains in order to prevent the recurrence of such misconduct.
However, there is a limit to a system that leaves everything to the ministry alone. It remains to be seen when the identification and collection of the remains will be completed. The probe to uncover the whole picture of the actual situation concerning the background of the detention, the treatment of detainees at detention camps, the details of forced labor and other matters is only halfway through.
If even bereaved families are not informed of how and why the detainees were taken away and died, the hardship of being detained will be buried in history.
The ministry has translated the documents provided by Russia into Japanese, but it cannot be said they have been effectively used. The government should strengthen the system to share materials among the Foreign Ministry, the National Archives of Japan, private organizations and experts on the Russian side and facilitate efforts to uncover the actual situation of the issue.
It is hoped that the government will explain the importance of the issue again to Russia and other countries concerned and urge them to cooperate in disclosing confidential materials and collecting the remains of Japanese soldiers.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Aug. 19, 2020.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
