On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender.
The Soviet Union, which had killed a large number of people in the war, faced with the devastation of the country, they directly detained 639635 prisoners of war. Of course, there are men and women, so let's start with the handling of male prisoners of war.
The Soviets used "stuffy tank" trains to escort Japanese prisoners of war to Siberia, the Far East, Kazakhstan and other regions for labor reform.
In the labor camps, the Soviet Union built a total of 267 prisoner-of-war camps, including 2,112 prisoner-of-war camps, 392 task forces and 178 specialized hospitals.
(Japanese prisoners of war)
The Japanese prisoners of war had just been transported to the labor camp, and when they got off the train, they were robbed of their belongings by the poor Soviets, and some senior officers carried wool pads and pillows, several changed pajamas, warm cotton jackets and cotton pants, novel color cameras, paints, paints, etc., and even brought a lot of spices for making rice. - "The Russian Tomb of the Japanese Samurai"
When the Japanese entered the camps and POW camps, there was nothing, and they had to build their own quarters. At that time, the only accommodation they could build was shacks and simple shacks. This kind of dwelling, in the cold Siberian winter, caused a large number of prisoners of war to freeze to death.
(Prisoners of war in the Siberian cold)
When the shelter was done, they began to enter the labor force, and the prisoners of war were placed in strenuous and dirty jobs, into mines, mines, timber harvesting and processing plants, engineering construction sites, oil processing plants, construction trusts of petroleum industry enterprises, railways and road workplaces.
Under the surveillance of Soviet soldiers, Japanese prisoners of war worked diligently and quickly, and they played a great role in the construction of the Soviet Union after the war.
Because of the continuous high-intensity labor, many prisoners of war were skinny to the bone, and there were routine inspections every month, according to the recollection of Yamamoto Yoshimaru, a prisoner of war in Beppu City, Japan: The prisoners of war were naked, lined up, waiting for the Soviet female military doctors to check one by one, and the female military doctors would use their thumbs and index fingers to pinch the skin on the prisoners of war, and judge the thickness of the meat according to the degree of skin pulling up, to distinguish the labor level of the prisoners of war, so as to arrange the corresponding labor positions.
The less meat, the easier the labor arranged. The thickest flesh, the prisoners of war of the first class, were assigned the heaviest and worst posts.
Moreover, the Soviets were given food according to the degree of completion of the prisoners' work. Take a look at the image below:
(Bread is brown bread)
This is the food ration of the next day after the PRISONERs have finished their work each day.
The high intensity of labor and the harsh cold of winter caused the Japanese prisoners of war to freeze to death in large numbers and die of illness. Most of them died of typhoid fever, typhus and pneumonia.
At that time, the POW camp hospitals lacked medicines, equipment, and medical personnel. Not only did the prisoners of war lack material quilts and cotton clothes for the winter, but even the Soviets lacked them. It was even more impossible to give the prisoners of war, so the prisoners of war died without complaint.
In addition to labor, the prisoners of war also had to undergo ideological reform, and in the "Secret of the Fate of the Previous KGBs", it was said that the greatness and advanced thinking of Marxism and Leninism should be preached to the prisoners of war.
(Active prisoners of war)
According to Hirano Yoshiro Hirano, a farmer in Kurume, Japan, "At Prisoner of War No. 19 in Siberia, tens of thousands of prisoners of war were gathered to carry out 'democratization' education. All PRISONERs feared that lack of education could delay repatriation. Even worry that it may be left here forever. Although the heart resisted, on the surface everyone actively accepted the reform, the outstanding performance of the prisoners of war, will be sent to the so-called recuperation room to live a good day of 10 to 12 days, where the prisoners of war can wear clean underwear and pajamas, eat and drink. “
As for the small number of Japanese female prisoners of war, they did not engage in espionage activities as much as in film and television dramas.
Instead, in the Japanese military system, female soldiers mainly served as nurses and messengers accompanying the army, in addition, they were "comfort women" who accompanied the army, and there were some female Japanese overseas Chinese.
For the fate of these female prisoners of war, the Soviet archives have not yet revealed too many details, but everyone understands that as a woman, how to be treated is nothing more than to reduce them to "comfort women" for the Use of the Soviets.
(Japanese female prisoner of war)
In order to alleviate the pressure to feed prisoners of war, the Soviet government began to repatriate the old, sick and disabled to Japan in 1946. According to Article IX of the Potsdam Declaration, Japanese prisoners of war should be repatriated after disarmament, which was carried out in many countries.
Only the Soviet Union left prisoners of war strongly in order to plunder the labor of prisoners of war, because the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union once said: "From the consideration of the national economy of the Soviet Union, I hope to make the best use of the time of Japanese prisoners of war working in the Soviet Union." ”
Later, the Soviet Union, under the pressure of international public opinion sought by the Japanese authorities, began in 1946, repatriated prisoners of war in batches, continued until 1948, repatriated more than 400,000 people, and by the end of 1956, all repatriations were completed, a total of 577567 prisoners of war, and 62,068 prisoners of war died in the Soviet Union.
Reference: Wang Lei, author of "Japanese Prisoners of War in Soviet Prisoners of War Internment Camps"
Xu Yuangong and Li Weihong, authors of "New Interpretation of the Declassified Archives of the Former Soviet Union on the Issue of "Japanese Prisoners of War""