大象传媒

I started research into this internment camp in summer 2005, as part of an academic assignment. I had been living and working in Fukushima for many years without ever hearing of it. Most of the information I have found comes from former internees and their relatives. I have been in touch with others who have come into contact with the Fukushima Internment Camp in the course of related studies, and also with 2 former internees, one a child at the time. I have received much information from the daughter of another former internee, and with a local Japanese journalist, Shigeru Konno, who brought out a book in 1991, for which he was able to meet certain Japanese guards and officials then still alive. Another Japanese book appeared in 2002, written by Masako Endo, who also goes into implications for Allied as well as Axis governments and allegations surrounding the German attack on the "Nankin" in the Indian Ocean in 1942 which led to the capture of many of the people who would end up in Fukushima. Otherwise, I am intrigued by the lack of information from Japanese and German sources, especially when compared with International Red Cross and Swiss and Swedish government archives. The question of legal responsibility for the captives remains wide open, but the internees were convinced that they were officially German prisoners and that Germany was responsible in law for their welfare. The internees, men, women and children of at least 9 nationalities, were all captured on the high seas by German naval forces and ended up imprisoned secretly in a French-Canadian convent in Fukushima, from which the sisters had been removed and interned elsewhere. However, they were not to hear from the Germans during their imprisonment, except for the return in 1945 of one lady's personal valuables, which she had left in the care of a German naval officer. This abandonment by the German authorities and the initial official secrecy surrounding the existence of the internment camp in Fukushima added to the privations the captives underwent until the end of hostilities. Little is yet known of the Greek seamen and certain Arab and African seamen who were interned in Fukushima. What little is known of the Greeks comes from writings of former British and New Zealand internees and official Swedish information. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can shed light on this topic.