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Aso Revelations on Wartime POW Labor Highlight the Need for a Real National Archive in Japan [Official Documents Appended] [Japanese Translation Available]

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Lawrence Repeta
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Prime Minister Aso Taro's admission that his family company employed prisoner-of-war labor during the final months of World War II may one day be seen as a milestone in Japan's struggle to contend with its own national history. In response to persistent questioning by an opposition lawmaker on the floor of the national parliament on January 6, Aso acknowledged the truth of recent disclosures of POW work at the Aso Mining Company in 1945.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , January 2009 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

Footnotes

[Japanese translation available here]: http://japanfocus.org/data/Repeta%20JP%20trans%20Final.pdf

References

Notes

[1] Julian Ryall, “Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso admits family used British POWs as slave labour,” Telegraph (U.K.), Jan. 6, 2009.

[2] Mari Yamaguchi, “Japan says Aso's family used POW labor,” Associated Press, Dec. 20, 2008.

[3] See for example

Fujiwara Akira, The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview

Oe Kenzaburo, “Misreading, Espionage and ”Beautiful Martyrdom“: On Hearing the Okinawa ‘Mass Suicides’ Suit Court Verdict.”

William Underwood, New Era for Japan-Korea History Issues: Forced Labor Redress Efforts Begin to Bear Fruit

Rumiko Nishino, The Women's Active Museum on War and Peace: Its Role in Public Education

[4] Norimitsu Onishi, “An unyielding demand for justice,” The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Nov. 15, 2006. Available here.