Beyond the Frozen Ground of Siberia - Narrators of Memory 2025

Beyond the Frozen Ground of Siberia - Narrators of Memory 2025

Former internees who had reached the age of 100 and their families took the stage at a gathering held in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. They quietly recounted their stories of hard labor in the extremely cold camps, their days of hunger and disease, and their feelings for their comrades who lost their lives because they could not return to their homeland. The silence that fell between the testimonies had a weight that could not be fully expressed. Many young people gathered in the hall, and it was impressive to see them listening intently to the testimonies of those who had no firsthand experience.

The Siberian internment is the history of Japanese soldiers and civilians who were forcibly taken away by the Soviet Union immediately after the end of World War II and forced to work for a long period of time. Approximately 570,000 people were interned, of which more than 60,000 are said to have lost their lives. During the postwar Cold War period, political tensions made it difficult to talk about this history for a long time, but since the 1990s, testimonies have been spreading, and the history has gradually taken root in society in the form of education and recordings.

In this dialogue, generations of children and grandchildren also spoke out, showing that family history transcends the individual and leads to the memory of society. The shadow of war continues across generations, and the pain behind the silence was once again highlighted. The voices of storytellers are not merely a record of the past, but a wake-up call for the future, an activity to pass on the will for peace to the next generation. The fact that this storytelling event was held in the heart of Tokyo on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II shows that passing on history is still an urgent issue.