Mr. Hideyuki Aizawa Talks about His Experiences in Former Soviet Union as an Internee after WW II Part II
-Experiences in Siberia and Consideration for the Future-
Interview Date: July 14, 2014
Place: Aizawa Law Office in Tokyo
Interviewee: Mr. Hideyuki Aizawa
Interned in the former Soviet Union after WWII ended. After returning to Japan, he became the Director of the Budget Bureau, and was elected as a member of the Lower House nine times. After serving as the Director General of the Economic Planning Agency, he became a lawyer at the age of 85 in 2005. As the President of the Japan Association of Forced Internees, at the age of 95, he travels to Russia annually to continue negotiations with the Russian government in efforts to ensure that treaty promises are met. Mr. Aizawa dedicates this tremendous effort to pay his deepest tribute to those who passed away and to continue to sustain his commitment to assist their families and survivors.
www.zaidan-zenyokukyo.com
Planning/English Translation/Interviewer: Haruko Oshima Sakakibara
Born in Tokyo. She has been a lecturer of Japanese in East Asian Language and Culture at University of California, Davis since 1986. She published the bilingual website, “Japanese in Siberia” in 2015. Her uncle was interned in Siberia.
japaneseinsiberia.ucdavis.edu
Excerpts 2
Aizawa: The most crucial time was when I was thrown into a jail for four months. I was surrounded by only Russians, and I was really having a hard time. I couldn’t even get a match for smoking a cigarette. So I was motivated to learn Russian.
Aizawa: In fact, because of our direct negotiation in Moscow, they found 500,000 individual files of the internees and 700,000 cards were also found. Currently, they are working on the name list of the people who died in different camps for us.
Sakakibara: After the establishment of the Japanese National Association of Formerly Interned Men in Siberia and became president, you established the “ Special Foundation for Commemoration of Peace.” It was in the budget of the Diet in order to save the records of the experiences of the Japanese internment in Siberia.
Aizawa: Yes, 40,000,000,000 yen was allocated. (about 340,000,000 US dollars)
Aizawa: In the beginning, we were suspected of being communists just because we came back from the Soviet Union. Therefore, we were at a big disadvantage. However, such hardships made some people become more determined to do well.
Sakakibara: I think the feeling of “shame” weighs very heavily in the Japanese culture. If there is something shameful, it is not talked about.
Aizawa: I felt it was the responsibility of the ones who were left to live on. If we did not take care of it, who else would do it?
Aizawa: Well, the most important one now is due to the fact I only have a short time left. Therefore, I give my service to humanity. I also have a wish to leave a record of how I have worked in order to leave something as a reference for people who will come after me.
Aizawa: Well, everyone wished to forget about it, but it is not something you can simply forget. When I talk with the returnees, we all conclude that it was the worst way of living for our minds and for our physical condition. Because we went through such a horrible experience, we can endure anything if we think about how we were able to live through such a time. That’s all. That’s all that is positive. Well, having them as friends is special though. We lived in Siberia for three years helping one another, so we became really close friends. It is not the same kind of friendship you get in school.
Aizawa: “We don’t want to be in a war. We should never have a war. ” I must state this first. A war is a massive amount of destruction. It is truly wasteful for the entire world of human beings.
Aizawa: There is not enough documents and records of what kind of hardships they went through. I really think there should be more efforts to leave the records of that time. (about common people who had to flee from Manchuria after the WWII ended.)
Interview 2
Sakakibara: In the Interview I, I asked you about the experience while you were interned in Siberia after WWII. In this second Interview, I would like you to tell us about how you coped with that experience after you came home to Japan.
Sakakibara: You have acquired various foreign languages such as Russian, German. You mentioned that you want to make more effort to become better at English. From when and how did you learn Russian?
Aizawa: It is really interesting that I took a book, “Russian Four Weeks” when I went to China. It was because I heard there were many Russians in Beijing. Then I was captured by the Russians in North Korea. The book became useful there. Everyone wanted to read the book, so I cut them in two different parts. They went around in the camp like in the first two weeks here and the second two weeks here. The most crucial time was when I was thrown into a jail for four months. I was surrounded by only Russians, and I was really having a hard time. I couldn’t even get a match for smoking a cigarette. So I was motivated to learn Russian.
Sakakibara: Did you have that “Russian Four Weeks” in the jail?
Aizawa: No, I didn’t.
Sakakibara: Then did you pick it up from what you heard around you?
Aizawa: I went in there with a Russian Newspaper, Novaya Gazeta (New Newspaper.) I read that paper every day… the same thing again and again.
Sakakibara: Did you read aloud?
Aizawa: That’s right. If you are reading everyday, you will start to grasp some meanings gradually.
Sakakibara: How patient you were! Perhaps learning a foreign language is something you like to do?
Aizawa: Well, I didn’t dislike it. I had studied English before. I was also meeting Russians every day during my work, so I just naturally picked it up.
Sakakibara: Do you mean your work while you were at Yelabuga?
Aizawa: Yes. I was not good at reading books, but I managed to carry on daily conversations. I learned German the same way, living around Germans at the camp.
Sakakibara: Oh, in the camp… By the way, I heard that you have been visiting Russia as a representative of the Japan Association of Forced Internees for the past twenty years. Do you speak in Russian when you go there?
Aizawa: I don’t use Russian at that time. It is dangerous. I use an official interpreter.
Sakakibara: That way, you are making sure that negotiation is possible.
Aizawa: We have all the official records for that.
Sakakibara: What kind of negotiations do you work on in Moscow?
Aizawa: As I mentioned, we are now working on the implementation of what President Gorbachev had promised us in 1989 or 90 when he came to Japan. We made a treaty and three things were adopted at that time. One was to give us the name list, especially the names of the deceased. The second was to keep up with maintenance and management of the cemeteries. The third was to return lost articles. We want to make sure that they see to it to take care of it. We have especially had many negotiations around the name lists. In fact, because of our direct negotiation in Moscow, they found 500,000 individual files of the internees and 700,000 cards were also found. Currently, they are working on the name list of the people who died in different camps for us.
Sakakibara: There are some people engaged in that work over there too?
Aizawa: That’s right. We send some people from Japan too.
Sakakibara: I am sure I owe it to you for such detailed work, two years ago, I was able to obtain the Internee’s card of my uncle who was interned in Siberia.
Aizawa: Oh, it was one of the 700,000 cards !
Sakakibara: Someone in the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare mentioned there was no guarantee that they would locate his file among those, but they found it.
Aizawa: Where was your uncle in Siberia?
Sakakibara: He was in the current Vladivostok, Volosilv back then. Then he was in Ussuriysk. This area called Maritime Province. Nobody in my family knew where he was in Siberia until this material became available and clarified he was interned in two camps.
Aizawa: Were you able to get an individual file too? There are files for each person.
Sakakibara: Yes, I received the file too. These records are pretty detailed, showing how they were managing them.
Aizawa: Depending on the case, some people’s records in the hospital have all been kept.
Sakakibara: My uncle has passed away. However, now, we are able to get to know his record. I am really thankful for your continuous efforts and negotiation in Moscow.
Aizawa: However, out of 60,000 who died, only 40,000 are on the name list. The rest of them, 20,000 are still missing. Therefore, we are continuing to ask them to give us their names. We make sure to go to all of the offices such as Internal Affairs Office, and the Central Library of Military Documents, and ask them to look for pertinent documents.
Sakakibara: Is that right? It requires unbelievably patient efforts.
Aizawa: Exactly. Another obstacle occurred when the Soviet Union was divided into fifteen different countries. There were some areas where there were no Japanese who were interned, but they were almost all over the place. With Russia, we have been proceeding with our work pretty well. Aizawa: However, when countries were divided, other countries became foreign countries.
Sakakibara: Oh that’s what happened.
Aizawa: That became the tough condition. Now we had to deal with other countries.
Sakakibara: So they must say they don’t have the responsibilities. When that vast country was divided, such an unexpected obstacle occurred for you.
Sakakibara: In that vast land, the internment camps were all over the place.
Sakakibara: After the establishment of the Japan Association of Forced Internees of which you became the president, you established the “ Special Foundation for Commemoration of Peace.” It was in the budget of the Diet in order to save the records of the experiences of the Japanese internment in Siberia.
Aizawa: Yes, 40,000,000,000 yen was allocated. (about 340,000,000 US dollars)
Sakakibara: 40,000,000,000 yen! After the encouragement, the valuable public records like this, “Handing Down the Hardships Experienced ” was published. Until then, there were no public records, right?
Aizawa: These volumes were the parts that took care of personal records, weren’t they? There were 19 volumes.
Sakakibara: The publication of these records enabled individual like myself to learn the hardships of the internees. It also became possible to include these records in this website. The history of the Siberian internment was not publically known, but with this work, it became a public record. It was an epoch-making effort. We should really appreciate it. I understand it was very difficult for the repatriates to talk about their experiences.
Aizawa: That’s true. In the beginning, we were suspected of being communists just because we came back from the Soviet Union. It influenced our employment. While I was away for three years, there was an agrarian reform in Japan. Some people lost their land because the land of absentee landlord was taken away, and some lost their jobs as they were given to others. Therefore, we were at a big disadvantage. However, such hardships made some people become more determined to do well.
Sakakibara: That was such a tough time—they were not responsible for what happened to them.
I think the feeling of “shame” weighs very heavily in the Japanese culture. If there is something shameful, it is not talked about.
Aizawa: That’s what it is. While we are concerned about how to describe what happened to us, if it was “internment” or “prisoner of war,” some foreigners do not understand why we can not just let it go.
“You guys did all you could to fight, and then lost the war. So come to terms with the fact that you lost, and come back stronger and get revenge ! ”
Germans said things like that. “We did not lose the war. We were simply short of numbers. We have to do it again and get revenge.”
Sakakibara: That’s not the best, but it is indeed the cultural difference. Because of such a difference, the publicity of Siberian internment really took time. Your work was very meaningful because of that.
Aizawa: I really think we should have started to work on it much much earlier. Just like you mentioned, those reasons kept us from coming forward. Everyone thought they were so fortunate that they could come back to Japan alive. They thought that was enough. They could not come up with the idea to let people know about what happened to us.
Sakakibara: I understand. With such a personal experience inside you, you have worked as a public figure for the Japanese government. Although you must have been extremely busy, you found time to pursue your role to work for compensation for comrades or help the families of the deceased in Siberia to be able to visit the cemeteries in Siberia. What motivated you?
Aizawa: I felt it was the responsibility of the ones who were left to live on. If we did not take care of it, who else would do it?
Sakakibara: By the way, the short stories you wrote, “From the forest in Tatar” were sent to my house by air mail. It was such an interesting book. This is the one Mr. Aizawa wrote, “From the forest in Tatar.” You wanted to become a novelist during your high school days.
Aizawa: Yes, I wanted to be a novelist.
Sakakibara: Did you change your goal while you were in college?
Aizawa: Actually, it was when I was deciding which department to enter. I had to choose between the department of literature or law, and I realized becoming a novelist after entering the department of literature was not promising enough to secure food in the future.
Aizawa: The field of art is not the area where the result will always come after making efforts. There has to be talent.
Sakakibara: Well, both talent and luck, perhaps.
Aizawa: Well, in my case, I realized the fact of life. Then I thought I would do some work to create the environment to nurture culture or art.
Sakakibara: That’s what you thought about ! The short stories were very insightful and well written. When did you write them?
Aizawa: Actually, I wrote them as soon as I came back from Siberia.
Sakakibara: Right after you came back from Siberia?
Aizawa: Yes, so it was in my twenties.
Sakakibara: Did you publish it right away?
Aizawa: I was working at a government office back then, so I was hesitant if I should or not. Then I waited for a long time.
Sakakibara: Oh you had to consider the timing. Well then, which year did you publish this?
Aizawa: I think it took a long time.
Sakakibara: This says 1995.
Aizawa: It was after I got out of the government work and became a Diet member. I was in the Ministry of Finance when I wrote it.
Sakakibara: Then you were keeping it for quite a while. Each one of the six short stories described different aspects of psychological situations affected by the internment, and the complicated sensitivity was expressed realistically through the story tellers. “The window on the wall” is based on your own scary experience when you were in anxiety that you might be killed at any time in the individual cell, where you had to endure four month’s stay. The story, “From the forest in Tatar,” which became the title for this publication, is written from the view point of the main character who became tired of the life as a hostage. In the middle of the harsh labor next to hunger on a daily basis, human nature was disappearing. In addition, the old Japanese military system still existed to make it worse. One day, he applied for an even harsher labor on his own, and moved to another camp, where he fell in love with a woman. Regardless, he had a sudden death in the middle of his labor in the end. It gave me a lasting impression to read the process of how a truly intelligent young man was deprived of his freedom, but kept thinking about his happiness to the end. I felt your short stories were raising questions from a different angle compared to testimonies written by former internees in Siberia. Because of that, I felt it was unique and impressive. Did you intend to write that way?
Aizawa: I am often asked if I wrote about myself in that story, but that is not true. I was put it in the jail as a suspect although I was not a war criminal. So I was not sent out for the “rabota” outside.
Sakakibara: What is “rabota?”
Aizawa: That means labor. One thing I wrote was the criticism toward the current Russia. I wanted to say that the society based on this kind of socialism is doomed to collapse one day. Not only that, I wanted to write about what young Russians were like.
Sakakibara: You wanted to write about the facts about the country of Russia? When I read your talk with Ms. Riyako Godai, I recognized that you mentioned a “Novelist” and “Politician” have the common denominator, which is “ being interested in human beings.” Do you have any plan of writing more novels?
Aizawa: You know, there is a proverb, “A sparrow will not forget how to dance until it becomes a hundred years old.”
Sakakibara: There are only five years until you become a hundred.
Aizawa: I do hope I will write. I still have the ones I wrote—I wrote one documentary I can publish. I am thinking about publishing it.
Sakakibara: Make sure to publish that, please!
Aizawa: It is about the time I was in China for one year. It is not really a documentary. However, I am interested in writing something substantial as my last work. It would be a novel. I have not come up with the structure yet, though. I haven’t made a full plan yet, however.
Sakakibara: If you write it now, all of your emotions will spill out and very rich expressions will come out, I think.
Aizawa: You might laugh, but I am reading “"The Brothers Karamazov."
Sakakibara: You were mentioning that in your blog.
Aizawa: It has five volumes, and it is an amazing novel.
Sakakibara: 500 pages, right?
Aizawa: Well, 2500 pages in total. I am in the middle of the fourth volume now. It is just fantastic.
The story covers a very long period. It is not how a Japanese would write. Well, if I have a chance, I would like to try writing something.
Sakakibara: That would be great. I will be waiting. Ninety five years! You have 95 years worth of experiences—what kind of spirit do you think has sustained you as you have come along all these years?
Aizawa: Well, the most important one now is due to the fact I only have a short time left. Therefore, I give my service to humanity. I also have a wish to leave a record of how I have worked in order to leave something as a reference for people who will come after me. In reality, I am still working as a lawyer, and various cases are brought in. As I listen to each case, I am trying to help.
Sakakibara: “Seieijuku” is one of your groups you are working with.
Aizawa: Yes, it is a group with young people. I just want to share what I have been feeling in my long life experiences. It would be nice if they can learn something from it.
Sakakibara: People in Tottori who can learn from you directly like that are really fortunate. Well, then if you look back from this point of time, how do you evaluate your three years of experience in Siberia?
Aizawa: Well, everyone wished to forget about it, but it is not something you can simply forget. When I talk with the returnees, we all conclude that it was the worst way of living for our minds and for our physical condition. Because we went through such a horrible experience, we can endure anything if we think about how we were able to live through such a time. That’s all. That’s all that is positive. Well, having them as friends is special though. We lived in Siberia for three years helping one another, so we became really close friends. It is not the same kind of friendship you get in school.
Sakakibara: You just mentioned it was the “worst way of living.” I don’t think we can really imagine what happened. However, you have overcome that, and accomplished various achievements, working with the finance of Japan as a country or building a healthy environment for people to live. In conclusion, when you look around all over the world including Japan, considering “war and peace,” what would you like to tell the people who will live building the future?
Aizawa: “We don’t want to be in a war. We should never have a war. ” I must state this first. A war is a massive amount of destruction. It is truly wasteful for the entire world of human beings.
Therefore, I think the effort to avoid war is very important. However, once you are in a war situation, we must not lose the war. It is not only from the viewpoint of Japan, but is applicable to any country. This is how I feel because of the reality we experienced after the war. This is a difficult point though. Then if each country begins to focus on acquiring power and money in order to have weapons and armaments, then what would happen? That is a very controversial point. That belongs to the area of diplomacy. Our own experiences have taught us we should not fight in the war that would bring surrender. If we have to fight, we must win. I think we need to have such a mind-set.
Sakakibara: I have read what you have written somewhere, but instead of going to the war or not, where you are coming from is the strong commitment not to cause the misfortune or sadness that you saw in your own eyes such as in Manchuria where the Japanese who were living there were exposed to ultimate misery after Japan lost in the war.
Aizawa: Yes, that is what it is. They really had such a difficult time, and we don’t know the facts very well yet. Even though we ended up going to Siberia, we still had the protection as a group in the structure of an army. We did things together, and we had comrades. However, Japanese civilian residents in Manchuria had nothing to protect them and were exposed to terrible situations. They all became scattered and individually, they must have faced extraordinary unbearable moments. There is not enough documents and records of what kind of hardships they went through. I really think there should be more efforts to leave the records of that time.
Sakakibara: By making efforts like that, we can learn such a misfortune should never happen again. Your thoughtfulness is coming through it. I truly appreciate telling me such valuable personal stories for a long period of time today. Thank you so much.