Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 October 7 - 13 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Materials related to Japanese POWs in Siberia and Nanjing Massacre inscribed in UNESCO World Heritage list

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on October 10 announced that it will inscribe documents related to Japanese POW internment in Siberia and the Nanjing Massacre as well as 45 other new items of documentary heritage in its Memory of the World Register.

As a candidate for documentary heritage, Japan submitted to UNESCO 570 documents regarding Imperial Japanese soldiers who were taken to Siberian internment camps by the former Soviet Union after WWII. Those materials included diaries written on pieces of inner bark of white birch describing forced labor in a frigid climate and lists of soldiers who boarded ships from Siberia to Japan. The 570 documents belong to a memorial museum located in Kyoto’s Maizuru City where ships carrying returnees from Siberia arrived at its port.

The materials related to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre which were nominated by China contain photos taken by Japanese soldiers, video footage by an American priest, and records of the Nanjing Military Tribunal in 1947. This is the first time that various forms of documents related to Japan’s aggressive acts during the war were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list for documents.

The Japanese government on the same day issued a statement stating that the inscription of documents related to the Nanjing Massacre on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register is “extremely regrettable”. In the statement, the government considered that the Memory of the World Register project was used by China as a political instrument and indicated its intention to make a request that the project be reformed.

Regarding this issue, Akahata in its column dated October 11 said that it is clear from Japanese military operational records, soldiers’ diaries, and other historical materials that the Japanese military slaughtered many Chinese people after invading Nanjing.

“The documents announced by UNESCO as documentary heritage offer painful lessons about how war can drive people to act inhumanely. Only efforts to record and remember those lessons will ensure the future of humanity,” said the Akahata column.

Past related articles:
> Memorial service held for ex-Japanese POWs in Siberia and Mongolia [August 24, 2015]
> Historical facts refute attempts at sophism: Nanjing Massacre researcher [December 11, 2013]