HistoryDiff

In August 1945, the Soviet Union unilaterally broke the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Treaty and entered the war against Japan, invading Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. Even after Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration, Soviet military operations continued.

In Japanese textbooks, the Siberian internment is described as one of the greatest tragedies experienced by the Japanese people after the war. After the end of the war, approximately 575,000 (according to one theory, more than 600,000) Japanese soldiers and civilians were disarmed by the Soviet Union, and then deported to frigid concentration camps (Lageli) in Siberia and Central Asia, in violation of the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration (``Japanese armed forces... shall be reintegrated into their respective homes...'').

The internees were forced to do hard labor such as railway construction, mining, and deforestation in harsh conditions that reached temperatures of -40 degrees Celsius. It is estimated that more than 55,000 people were unable to return home and died in a foreign land due to insufficient food and poor sanitary conditions. The last returnee returned to Japan in 1956, and their internment lasted up to 11 years. This experience remains a deep scar in Japan's postwar history.

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