Thanks to Jay Veith
BBC International Reports (Asia)
March 11, 2005
Russia hands over files on Japanese dead in Soviet camps
Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo
Moscow, 11 March: Russia handed over to Japan on Friday newly found files on 11,184 of the Japanese military personnel who died in Siberian internment camps after World War II while detained as prisoners of war, Japanese officials said.
The files, found at the national military archives in Moscow, were provided in the form of microfilm, making the total number of Japanese internees whose files have been given to Japan at about 40,000, they said. Japan's Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry will examine the new files for whether there is any duplication with previous files. The new files include pictures of the interns [as received] and their relatives and the burial places.
Japanese Ambassador to Russia Issei Nomura accepted the files in a ceremony at the archives from Vladimir Kozlov, director of Russia's Federal Archive
Agency.
Japan and Russia signed a pact in 1992 on the collection of files on the Japanese internees.
Many Japanese troops mainly who were in northeastern China when Japan surrendered in the war in 1945 were taken prisoner by the then Soviet Union and detained at internment camps in Siberia and Mongolia. They were forced to provide labour mainly in railway construction and tree-cutting.
A Japanese government survey has found the number of the Japanese detainees is about 575,000, and an estimated 55,000 of them died due to malnutrition, illness or other causes during the internment.
AND
BBC International Reports (Former Soviet Union)
March 11, 2005
Russia and Japan sign protocol on POW documents
Excerpt from report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS
Moscow, 11 March: Russia and Japan today signed a protocol to implement a project to photocopy the documents of Japanese servicemen who died in POW camps in the USSR after World War II. The protocol was signed by the head of the Federal Archive Department, Vladimir Kozlov, and Japanese Ambassador to Russia Issei Nomura.
Kozlov said that "altogether there are plans to copy around 40,000 records of Japanese subjects who died in captivity". He believes that "signing the protocol gives a new impetus to implementing this project of many years, on which work began after an intergovernmental agreement was signed in 1991". "Microfilming the records is a humanitarian gesture by Russia," he stressed. Kozlov expressed the hope that "completing the project will serve to deepen understanding between the peoples of Russia and Japan". He noted that "the project will definitely go ahead" and gave the ambassador a number of new photocopies.
A representative of the Russian State Military Archive, Vladimir Korotayev, told the ITAR-TASS correspondent that "specialists at the archive will soon be putting the records of more than 11,000 Japanese POWs onto microfilm". "There are plans to complete this important mission this year," he said. Issei Nomura said today's ceremony "confirms how seriously the Russian side takes this issue". "The Japanese government places a high value on cooperation with Russia in submitting all the necessary archive documents."
[Passage omitted]
[In a separate report, ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0515 gmt 11 March 05 said that Japan has asked the Sakhalin authorities for assistance in finding the remains of soldiers who died in August 1945 when Shushu Island in the Kuril chain was stormed by Soviet troops. At the time It was home to a large Japanese garrison. Relatives would like to rebury their dead according to national tradition, the agency said. Members of the Pioneer military and patriotic foundation are to accompany Japanese experts to the island, the agency added.] Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1506 gmt 11 Mar 05