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Postwar Repatriation: Bringing Home the Millions of Japanese Stranded Overseas After the War

  • A boy waits forlornly to be repatriated to Japan. Orphaned and alone, the boy was not allowed to board a ship because he had no papers to prove his identity. This photograph is believed to have been taken in Busan in 1946. (Courtesy of Memorial Museum for Soldiers, Detainees in Siberia, and Postwar Repatriates)

    A boy waits forlornly to be repatriated to Japan. Orphaned and alone, the boy was not allowed to board a ship because he had no papers to prove his identity. This photograph is believed to have been taken in Busan in 1946. (Courtesy of Memorial Museum for Soldiers, Detainees in Siberia, and Postwar Repatriates)

  • The Shirakaba Nisshi, inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World, was one of the items on show in the joint exhibition. The journal contains around 200 poems written by Japanese internees in Siberian camps. The prisoners used the bark of white birch trees instead of paper. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

    The Shirakaba Nisshi, inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World, was one of the items on show in the joint exhibition. The journal contains around 200 poems written by Japanese internees in Siberian camps. The prisoners used the bark of white birch trees instead of paper. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

  • A reconstruction of the landing bridge built after the war in Maizuru harbor, across which many thousands of repatriated Japanese reentered the country. The Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum is nearby. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

    A reconstruction of the landing bridge built after the war in Maizuru harbor, across which many thousands of repatriated Japanese reentered the country. The Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum is nearby. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

  • A junior high school student works as a guide, passing on the lessons of history to a group of young visitors to the Repatriation Memorial Museum in Maizuru. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

    A junior high school student works as a guide, passing on the lessons of history to a group of young visitors to the Repatriation Memorial Museum in Maizuru. (Courtesy of the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.)

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