<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So this may get, help me understand this next question. So when you surrendered, the war was over, and yet you spent a thousand days, almost three years in Siberia in a work camp. Why so long? Why, why weren't you released back to Japan right after the war was over, or soon after, but rather three years of hard labor? What was going on?

IS: The way I understand it was, I read a book where they said the Japanese headquarters in Manchuria for the Kwantung army, they invited the Russians. They said things like, "You suffered a lot, you don't have manpower, labor, you need labor. Take our men. Not only our solider, but you could take our civilians, too." They said some higher-up in the Kwantung army offered them to do that. And that's sort of hard to believe, but I don't think so. I think that could have very well happened. And another thing they say, I've read, was that the Soviets wanted Hokkaido, too. And Truman was way against that, I guess MacArthur was, too. They wouldn't let the soldier come, what do they call that, sovereign? Half of that was Japan and then this was the Soviet, they took all of that, and that's all they gave them. But they wanted Hokkaido, and I guess Stalin said, "Well, if we can't get Hokkaido, we'll get something," and he got labor.

TI: But in both cases, it was like you were just pawns, just kind of there in terms of almost a negotiation.

IS: But then there is, I hear, because from your university, there's a lawyer there, he's from Switzerland. And he worked for the International Red Cross. And early on, he went to Japan after Japan's surrender, and he worked on, with a group of Japanese, to get compensation for Japanese who were prisoners in Siberia. And he worked real hard, so I met him... oh, well, I won't even get into that detail, but real roundabout way I was able to get in touch with him. And he said, "Oh, if you go to Japan, I want you to meet somebody," and he gave me some business cards. And when I went to Japan I met this group that for all these many year, working on that, getting compensation for ex-prisoners. But according to that, I was told that Allied prisoners, if the Dutch captured Japanese soldier and made him work, they didn't pay them. Or if they didn't pay them, they gave 'em paper saying, "This so-and-so worked so many days as a prisoner." And they brought that paper back to Japan, and the Japanese government paid them. But the Soviets didn't do anything like that. But finally, couple of months ago, I think the Japanese government is giving out some money now to people who came back in 1947, I guess, was the latest, earliest to those who spent maybe ten years there.

SF: Is there a historical or sort of documented evidence of Japanese government making this deal to, in a sense, negotiate you guys away?

IS: There are some books on that, yes. There was one guy who went to, he was a prisoner, and then for some reason he became, had real close contact with the Kremlin. And they invited him to come over and go through their archives, library of things, and he comes, he wrote a book on that. And he died here, oh, about five years ago, I guess. And some problem arose, his wife wanted to take over something that he was doing. But he, this guy has a real big... and I remember talking to a history professor at Berkeley, and he was familiar with this. He's a hakujin guy with a Japanese wife in Berkeley. But he's, he does a lot of translation of Japanese books. He's not like me, he reads and everything, Japanese. But he mentioned, I had a book, and he says, "Oh, you got this book." He says, "I went through this, and yes, this guy is really an enemy of the Japanese government."

SF: Did the Japanese people ever show resentment of Japan's, their government for having put all the soldiers through this?

IS: No. You know, it wasn't 'til very recently. I wasn't aware of this, but this part I know. When I was in Japan, the next year, when people came back, they were really brainwashed. And at Maizuru port, when their families came to welcome them back, they ignored them and a lot of 'em went to Tokyo to sign up with the Communist party and stuff like that. But that didn't last. That kind of pro-Communist thing didn't last too long, but I heard that a lot of repatriates had a hard time getting jobs, too, because of things like that. And I wasn't aware of that when I was in Japan. But they said lot of ex-prisoners suffered.

SF: Sort of blaming the victim in a sense.

IS: Yeah.

TI: Good.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.