War is undoubtedly cruel, and the tragic price is reflected in every individual, and it is even more unbearable for life.
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union landed in northeastern China and launched Operation August Storm.
In the face of the defeated Japanese army, the million-strong Soviet army swept through the Japanese army in the northeast and crushed it.
After that, a large number of Japanese soldiers became prisoners of war and were sent to Siberia, a bitter cold land, for labor reform.
They were greeted not only by heavy physical labor, but also by hunger, cold, and the consequences of not ending well.
According to later data, nearly 600,000 Japanese prisoners of war died during their captivity, and eventually gradually disappeared from people's sight.
Later, the attitude of the Japanese towards the Soviet Union also added the color of "Soviet-phobia" and converged a lot.
What happened to the Japanese prisoners of war during this period? What role did the Soviet side play?
In August 1948, World War II was drawing to a close, and the Emperor of Japan accepted defeat and hesitated to surrender unconditionally and conditionally.
At that time, the Japanese army entrenched in Northeast China was already panicked and disheartened, but they did not know that the Soviet Union, which had previously signed the "Non-Aggression and Friendship Pact" with Japan, was landing in Northeast China with a million-strong army to launch the final fierce attack on the Japanese army.
In the end, the Soviets won a great victory, capturing 5940,000 Japanese troops. But this huge number has far exceeded the Soviet Union's capacity for prisoners of war.
On August 23, 1945, Stalin adopted an agreement on the placement of Japanese prisoners of war for labor.
As a result, in September 1945, nearly 600,000 Japanese prisoners of war were transported by train to cold Siberia and the Far East in units of 1,000 for forced labor.
As soon as they arrived in Siberia, before they could get to the house to warm up, they were faced with their first job, building their own houses.
In the days that followed, most people were engaged in heavy manual labor, such as logging, mining, construction, transportation, production, etc.
Only a few lucky people were arranged to dredge water pipes and remove broken ice for local officials and private households.
In order to avoid leaving a rumor on the European and American sides, the Soviets often offered some compensation to the prisoners of war, but basically the rewards were very meagre and could not cover the daily economic needs of the Japanese prisoners of war.
However, heavy physical work corresponds to a lack of food.
In the post-war Soviet Union, food production fell sharply, and most of the population was still half-starved, and the food supply was distributed by the state.
Under such circumstances, the food of the prisoners of war** also faced a severe test.
When escorting the prisoners of war, the Soviets distributed a two-kilogram piece of black bread to each prisoner of war, which was all the food for the prisoners before they arrived at their destination**.
The lack of food, in the following period, also accompanied the life of Japanese prisoners of war, which took the lives of many prisoners of war.
Many people have lost their lives due to malnutrition and severe food insecurity.
At the time, a Soviet prisoner of war administration prepared food for only 150 people, but in the end a prisoner of war administration took in more than 400 Japanese.
After a day of heavy physical labor, most people tend to only get a small amount of coarse food.
At that time, Siberia was inaccessible, and the roads were often closed due to heavy snowfall, and food could not be delivered on time.
Under the rule that the locals could not send food to Japanese prisoners of war, many Japanese prisoners of war learned to dig wild vegetables and eat voles in order to survive.
And people who can't find food** often have to go to the end of their lives with hunger.
In addition to the hunger that accompanies most POWs throughout their lives, the cold is even more difficult.
On the way to Siberia, most of them were herded into freight trains that were not protected from the cold.
It was winter, many people were thinly dressed, and prisoners of war died in almost every carriage on the way because they could not bear the bitter cold.
And when it comes to Siberia, the cold is even more with you.
Many Japanese soldiers, who were weak and unadaptable, fell ill and collapsed in the bitter cold weather not long after.
And even the well-dressed prisoners of war suffered from frostbite. Japanese soldiers who could not afford to be sick often ended up being thrown directly into the furnace, or waiting to freeze to death and then thrown into the furnace.
In the prisoner of war camps at the time, cement bags were found to keep them warm from the cold, and for a time they became the most valuable item in the chain of private transactions.
A cement bag can often be exchanged for a few cigarettes or bread, and sometimes even a canned meat.
In addition, what is even more embarrassing is that some of these prisoners of war captured by the Soviet army have become experimental specimens of the new **. It is reported that at the end of July 1949, the Soviet Union also issued a secret directive"Prisoners of war and prisoners who participated in the labor construction of special projects should become ghosts. ”
Later, in the face of the death of a large number of prisoners of war, the Soviet Union explained in its response that a large number of prisoners of war died due to the unadaptation of the climate and environment, malnutrition, and epidemics of disease.
This seems very reasonable, there is nothing to blame, and the suffering during this period is a painful experience that is difficult to forget for the Japanese prisoners of war who have experienced it.
Obviously there were not enough conditions to accommodate 600,000 prisoners of war, so why was the Soviet Union so obsessed with the rush to settle Japanese prisoners of war at that time? Why did scandals of mistreatment of Japanese prisoners of war repeatedly break out during this period?
This brings us to the state of the Soviet Union at that time. After World War II, although the Soviet Union was the victorious country, after World War II, the Soviet Union was also greatly damaged.
Originally 1A quarter of the 600 million people, or about 40 million people, were killed in the war, most of them young men.
The lack of labor and the collapse of the economy put the post-war Soviet Union in an embarrassing situation.
The nearly 600,000 Japanese prisoners of war were a good medicine to relieve the pain of the Soviet Union.
* Free labor without paying wages for work in the Soviet industry, construction, etc.
This has to be said to be a cost-effective deal. It is reported that such statements were also circulated in the Soviet Union at that time.
Coincidentally, in addition to the Soviet Union, there were other victorious countries that used Japanese prisoners of war as cheap labor.
In Kazakhstan at that time, a large number of Japanese prisoners of war were also thrown into the construction of cities.
Even, they were involved in the construction of the Almaty Heavy Machine Building Plant and the Tram Depot.
The United States also held 70,000 Japanese prisoners of war and carried out work to dismantle military installations on the Pacific islands.
However, compared to the prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union, their working environment was much more comfortable. At the end of 1946, these Japanese prisoners of war returned to Japan one after another.
Prisoners of war held by the Soviet Union were more likely to die in heavy physical labor and hunger and cold.
Some were not released back to Japan until they were old and weak. According to statistics, about two-thirds of Japanese prisoners of war remained in Siberia forever.
Among the Japanese soldiers captured by the Soviet Union, in addition to those captured by the Soviet Union in Northeast China at that time, there were also some Japanese who were sent to the Soviet Union on their own initiative after the war.
After the defeat, Japan signed a war reparation agreement with the Soviet Union, and in the face of huge reparations, Japan was powerless. At that time, Japan had already been dragged down by the war and was in a state of collapse.
Therefore, at that time, the Japanese sent retired soldiers to Soviet prisoner of war camps to pay reparations by providing labor. At that time, the Soviet Union was taking more and more Japanese prisoners of war.
In the face of the large number of Japanese prisoners of war, the Soviet Union ordered that they must be strictly observed in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and among the prisoners of war, they were equipped with medical prisoners of war personnel and daily transportation.
In practice, however, it was difficult for the Soviet Union to strictly comply with the requirements of the Convention.
At the beginning, due to the lack of preparation for the reception of many prisoners of war and the lack of basic living materials, the conditions for the prisoners of war were not up to standard. Dirty, overcrowded and lacking heating facilities are often common in prisoner-of-war camps.
Others are due to historical reasons, and it cannot be ruled out that the front-line soldiers treated Japanese prisoners of war harshly because of anger.
In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, 160,000 Soviet soldiers were killed.
In the later Battle of Nomenhan, the Japanese used biochemical warfare to put biochemical ** into the water source of the Soviet army, and the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses.
When Japan's Unit 731 ravaged Northeast China, many Soviet soldiers died in inhumane experiments during the period, and the behavior of the Japanese army was outrageous.
Fortunately, later, due to pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union began to release Japanese prisoners of war one after another, giving priority to the repatriation of sick and infirm prisoners of war and civilians. The management of prisoners of war has also been improved.
In the winter of 1945, faced with a drastic reduction in Japanese prisoners of war, the Soviet Union ** also took remedial measures.
Beginning in 1946, the Soviet Union began to increase its investment and attention to the management of prisoners of war.
At the beginning of the year, the Soviet Union organized prisoners of war to build houses and prisoner of war camps, adjusted the working hours of prisoners of war, and stipulated that they could rest for a day in severe cold weather.
In addition, the treatment of Japanese prisoners of war began to improve, such as more food**, increased cultural and sports activities, and committees to guarantee corresponding rights.
According to relevant data, in 1946, the Soviet Union had begun to release many batches of Japanese prisoners of war to return home.
Why did the Soviet Union begin to "preferentially" treat Japanese prisoners of war again in the later period?
First, the investment of Japanese prisoners of war in the early stage made a great contribution to the construction of Soviet cities, especially the industrial and mining enterprises and urban construction of the Soviet Union.
Second, the Soviet Union brought back many Japanese technicians from the battlefield, which made great contributions to the Soviet Union's later atomic bomb project. At that time, in order to maintain secrecy, these Japanese prisoners of war who had been engaged in the atomic bomb project were closely monitored by Soviet soldiers.
According to calculations, the GDP of the USSR in 1946 was 07% were created by prisoners of war.
In addition to "giving preferential treatment" to Japanese prisoners of war, the Soviet Union also carried out ideological reforms on them, offering courses on "Marxist theory" and "education in democratization" in the camps.
The effect was so remarkable and so successful that many Japanese prisoners of war later had their "faith" wiped out, and after returning home, they became staunch supporters of socialism, pro-Sovietists, and even trained to become Soviet spies and repatriated to Japan.
Even at the beginning, some die-hard Japanese prisoners of war hid their national flags and brought them into the prisoner of war camps to use as towels, determined not to forget their country, and said that they would fight until the last moment.
But such prisoners of war are often confiscated of their national flags and held for a long time.
It was in this kind of "** education" that many Japanese prisoners of war gave up the Japanese militarism they had previously believed in and became supporters of socialism and the Soviet Union.
But it is precisely because of this that most of the Japanese prisoners of war who were later repatriated to Japan were difficult to get a good death in their later years.
First, in Japan's culture of bushido honor, the concept of being a prisoner of war was deeply embedded in the Japanese people at that time;
Second, Japan believes that these repatriated prisoners of war are very likely to have been "Sovietized" and will become "dangerous elements" that will affect society and shake the world after returning to Japan.
As a result, most Japanese prisoners of war did not receive the treatment and respect they deserved from veterans, but on the contrary, they were discriminated against and bullied by society.
Therefore, many prisoners of war who returned to Japan expressed dissatisfaction with Japan, because they believed that the country and ** not only hurt themselves, but also abandoned themselves.
In addition to being repatriated, some prisoners of war were combined with Soviet female soldiers in the Soviet Union, and eventually stayed in the Soviet Union, while saving themselves.
At that time, many female soldiers who had lost their husbands were also sent to Siberia to take care of Japanese prisoners of war.
Although the Soviet Union strictly forbade prisoners of war and female soldiers to come into close contact, some people got along with each other over time.
At that time, there was a serious imbalance between men and women on many farms in the Soviet Union, and in some places there were three times as many women as men.
Faced with such a situation, in the end, the Soviet Union also had to cancel the previous regulations and turn a blind eye to them.
According to the data, the Japanese prisoners of war who were captured by the Soviet Union during World War II were held for more than ten years in Siberia and other places.
Although the joys and sorrows of each Japanese prisoner of war were different, the background of the war brought to their lives was gloomy.
A series of questions about the experience of Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, such as the exact number of deaths during captivity, the amount that the Soviet Union should have paid for prisoners of war as labor, and the burial places of prisoners of war, are still unresolved.
Through this incident, we should see not only that Japan deserved it, or that the Soviet Union had followed in the footsteps of Japan's inhumanity, but that the war had brought suffering to the people of the world.
After the war, the economy collapsed, the construction of cities was destroyed by the war, the people were struggling to make a living, many families were torn apart, many lives were cast on the shadow of war, and many soldiers suffered from the sequelae ......of war after the war, and the shadow of war accompanied them for a lifetime, like a shadow
All kinds of deeds are warning us to the same thing, we must cherish the hard-won peace. Don't let war become a means for politicians to gain power, and let people's lives and lives pay for war.
References:
1] Wang Lei. Study of Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (1945-1956) [D].Jilin University, 2013
2] Xu Yuan Palace. Why the Soviet Union was reluctant to release Japanese prisoners of warScience & Technology Information (Shandong), 2011