Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union

Common card · No. 471671

After World War II Japanese personnel in the Soviet Union and Mongolia were interned to work in labor camps as POWs. Estimates for their number vary, from 560,000–760,000 to 900,000. Of them, it is estimated that between 60,000, 200,000-300,000 or 347,000 died in captivity. The majority of the approximately 3.5 million Japanese armed forces outside Japan were disarmed by the United States and Kuomintang China and repatriated in 1946. Western Allies had taken 35,000 Japanese prisoners between December 1941 and 15 August 1945, i.e., before the Japanese capitulation. The Soviet Union held the Japanese POWs in a much longer time period and used them as a labor force. Soviet Union behavior was contrary to the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact from the beginning, and also to the Potsdam Declaration, which guaranteed the return of surrendered Japanese soldiers to Japan. When Russian president Boris Yeltsin arrived in Japan in October 1993, he apologized for it being an "inhumane act." However,...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain