Таємниці "західного інтернування": японці в радянських таборах для військовополонених в Українській РСР (1946-1949 рр.)

Потильчак / Potylchak, Олександр /Olexandr

Таємниці "західного інтернування": японці в радянських таборах для військовополонених в Українській РСР (1946-1949 рр.)

Потильчак / Potylchak, Олександр /Olexandr

URI: http://enpuir.npu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2879

Date: 2013-05-24

Abstract:

У книзі на основі нещодавно розсекречених унікальних архівних документів Управління у справах військовополонених та інтернованих НКВС (МВС) УРСР, спога-дів очевидців і свідчень учасників тих подій вперше в історичній науці зроблено спробу висвітлити трагічну долю тисяч інтернованих вояків японської Квантунської армії, які волею сталінської репресивно-каральної системи опинилися за тисячі кілометрів від рідної землі – в далекій Україні. Багато з них так і не побачили більше своєї бать¬ківщини, знайшовши останній спочинок в українській землі. Наразі ця сторінка історії радянського військового полону часів Другої світової війни залишається «білою пля¬мою» на тлі хоч якоюсь мірою відомих і відносно вивчених його сюжетів, а згадка про японських військовополонених на наших теренах, навіть у спеціалістів-істориків викли¬кає неприховане здивування. Здається, давно настав час розвіяти морок невідомості… Розрахована на науковців, усіх, хто цікавиться вітчизняною та світовою історією ХХ ст. на широке коло читачів. На її появу чекають сьогодні нащадки жертв полону, у надії хоча би щось дізнатися про долю своїх рідних, які не повернулися додому.

Description:

SUMMARY During the last decades Russian and Japanese scientists and public organizations are working out over the fates of internee of the Japanese servicemen and civilians in Soviet Union in 1945. This theme in Russian science has vast historiography. The amount of internee is set on the basis of precise study of the archives and interviews of witnesses and eyewitnesses. The conditions of their maintenance and labor in the Far East and Siberia are compared and studied out, the places of former camps and cemeteries of internee Japanese soldiers and officers are set, the amount of the dead in captivity is specified. Public organizations are conducting active work to renew the burial places, organizations of visit by the relatives of internee who found the last refuge in Russian earth. Today far not all professional historians, not mention ordinary citizens, know that in a post-war period (since 1946) on the territory of Ukraine thousands of internee Japanese were kept in camps for the war prisoners. Hundreds of them never returned home. Time and human indifference leveled historical memory about the victims of that war, and a vulture «top secret» on long decades hid information about them after the walls of archived X-files. As a result, today this sorrowful page of soviet military captivity is not investigated practically. The questions of quantity of Japanese prisoners in Ukrainian soviet camps, features of placing, maintenance and labor conditions remain open. Researchers are still to answer a question how many of them died and were buried in Ukraine, how long Japanese internee remained in Ukraine and when they were repatriated to Japan. Finding out of all these circumstances is the aim of research project «Internee Japanese on the territory of Ukraine after The Second World War», which started in 2007 on the department of historical sources and special historical disciplines of the National pedagogical university М. Dragomanov (Kyiv). The importance of its realization is caused not only by a desire to fill some «white spot» in the tragic history of war and to recover historical memory, but also to assist strengthening and expansion of intergovernmental contacts, mutually beneficial collaboration of Ukraine and Japan. The aim of this scientific project is to carry out a complex study of history of internee Japanese servicemen on the territory of Ukraine in a post-war period. In this context the authors of project try to solve such scientific tasks as: to educe the complex of the archives and published sources on the issue of the internee Japanese servicemen on the territory of Ukrainian SSR in a post-war period; to specify the territorial-temporal scopes of placing and maintenance of internee Japanese in the regions of Ukraine; to analyze the dynamics of quantity of their contingent in war prisoners camps of Ukraine; to investigate the features of maintenance of Japanese internee in camps; to expose the specific of secret-service-operative activity of Soviet military captivity among the contingent of prisoners; to study the conditions of labor of Japanese internee on the renewal of Ukrainian economy ruined by war; to analyze the indexes of morbidity and death rate among internee Japanese in Ukraine; to set quantitative indexes and places of their burial. The applied side of project foresees the promulgation of names of internee died in captivity, topographical research of dislocation of camps and cemeteries of war prisoners where Japanese were buried, establishment of memorable signs in those places. The preliminary results of scientific project are generalized by authors in this small book. The territorial-temporal scopes of placing and maintenance of internee Japanese in the regions of Ukraine was succeeded to specify on the basis of over-studied documents. According to the documents of Soviet department of war prisoners during 1946-1948 more than 5 000 internee Japanese were contained and used as workers on the territory of five eastern regions of Ukraine (Voroshilovgrad, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kharkov and Stalin). The basic spheres of their usage were building and restoration in cities, constructions of roads, working on the enterprises of coal and metallurgical industry. The basic tasks of secret-service-operative work among internee Japanese was an exposure in this contingent of persons, suspected in war crimes, agents of secret service and also persons speaking Russian. Practically, to the end of 1948, all internee Japanese were removed from the camps of war prisoners in Ukraine to Far East, and than repatriated to Japan. The inevitable and tragic side of military captivity and internment was a death rate in the camps. The archives over-studied by authors testify that remains of internee Japanese were fond at least on 15 cemeteries of war prisoners in Ukraine. It was succeeded to recover the names of 211 buried internee Japanese’s (according the data of cemetery books). However, this amount is far from reality, and to help setting the truth in this question the massive research mainly among Russian archives can only be done. It is necessary to underline that question of Japanese internee of Second World War in Ukrainian SSR is an important constituent of finding out of certain features of the Soviet military captivity system on the territory of republic in a post-war period. The researches and analysis results of historical source base testify that the Ukrainian historians have just started to open slightly the curtain of uncertainty in this perspective for research theme. Our book is addressed not only to the professional historians. It is for the wide audience of readers, who is interested in national and world history of the ХХ century. Its appearance is looked forward especially by the descendants of former internee, waiting in a hope to find out something about the fate of their relatives never returned from such distant and unknown for them Ukraine.

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