The Story of Japanese Prisoners of War in Kazakhstan

The POWs captured by Soviet forces were integrated into the Gulag system of forced labor. Among them were Japanese soldiers taken in 1945 after the Soviet–Japanese War, who, after having endured captivity and the horrors of Stalin’s camps, ended up in Kazakhstan. Many of them managed to later return home, though many others died in captivity and now rest in Kazakh soil. Yet, there were also some who chose to stay. One of them was Ahiko Tetsuro, who passed through the Spassky Camp near Karaganda. His postwar life and the story of his time in the POW camp deserve special attentioniШаймуханова С. Д. Қазақстандағы саяси қуғын-сүргін (30–40 – 50-жылдардың басы). — Қарағанды, 2000..

The Spassky Camp for POWs in Karaganda was established on 24 June 1941, based on one of the subdivisions of the Karlag Camp. By August, the first trainload of prisoners had already arrived. In the early days of combat, Soviet forces had captured around 1,400 enemy soldiersiАлтаев А. Ш., Жангуттин Б. О. GUPVI: военнопленные и интернированные на территории Казахстана (1939–1951) (Учебное пособие в 3 ч.). — Алматы: КазНПУ им. Абая, 2006. . The Spassky Camp soon became the largest POW camp on Kazakh territory, and between 1941 and 1950, approximately 70,000 people passed through it. Of these, 30,000 were Germans, 22,000 Japanese, 6,000 Romanians, and around 1,600 Austrian soldiers. The camp also held prisoners from France, Italy, Lithuania, what was then Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. More than 7,000 foreign POWs died there, and about 5,000 are buried in the Spassky Cemetery. There are roughly 2,000 more unmarked graves scattered throughout the surrounding area; however, it is now impossible to identify them. Some burial sites were flooded, and other sites were subsequently buried beneath the foundations of new buildingsiЕлеуханова С. Б. История ҚарЛАГа: охрана, режим и условия содержания заключенных (1930–1956 гг.). Автореф. дис. ... канд. ист. наук. — Қарағанды, 2009. .

By the late 1980s, foreign embassies began installing memorial plaques on the graves of their nationals at the Spassky Cemetery. In 1987, the Japanese government arranged for the repatriation of the remains of its citizens buried in the Karlag gulag.

It is believed that camp authorities assigned the Japanese prisoners to the hardest labor—especially mining work near Balkhash—due to their sense of responsibility and their strong work ethic. Local residents still recall the harsh and tragic fates of these ‘samurai with sympathy’. Every day at dawn, the Japanese marched silently to the mines, returning to their barracks only late at night. They worked tirelessly, exceeding production quotas by 120 to 150 percent, a critical contribution at a time of severe labor shortages in the postwar economy.

A special order was soon issued allowing prisoners who exceeded work quotas to expect earlier repatriation. This was intended to increase productivity while motivating the inmates. However, even though no one could match the Japanese in terms of motivation and performance, they were the last to leave the Spassky camp, being allowed to return home only in the 1950s.

The POWs held in Kazakhstan were mainly employed at large industrial facilities. They were sent to the Kazakh Metallurgical Plant in the Karaganda region, the Zhezkazgan Copper Smelter, the Ust-Kamenogorsk zinc plant, the Achisay and Leninogorsk polymetallic plants, the Tekeli lead plant, the Karatau oil refinery, and enterprises of the Karagandaugol Trust, among many others, where they labored without rest.

The Japanese prisoners were housed separately from Europeans, and they had virtually no contact with other inmates or the local population. They had a special diet, which included fish and rice. However, serious violations were common in the camps, despite official regulations and instructions. Prisoners were not provided with gloves or specialized clothing, and industrial safety standards were almost entirely ignored, resulting in frequent workplace injuries. This, in turn, reduced productivity levels. Moreover, many Japanese prisoners did not know Russian and were unable to understand even basic safety instructions, which often led to tragic accidents and increased mortality rates in the camps. Food supply issues only worsened the already dire conditions. Malnourished and physically exhausted, many prisoners reached the brink of psychological collapse.

The Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan contains previously classified documents that shed light on daily life in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs’ (abbreviated as NKVD) Camp No. 99 in the Karaganda region. One such document—a letter dated 2 October 1945, addressed to all the People's Commissariats (Narkomats) of Internal Affairs—includes a request from the camp administration and the Karagandaugol mining combine for transportation to deliver food supplies, as outlined in an agreement between the two institutions. However, the request was never fulfilled.

Due to the lack of transportation, food deliveries to the camp were irregular, leaving the POWs without not only proper work clothing but also basic nutrition. Although the camp required up to 15,000 tons of vegetables annually, it lacked transport of its own. The mining combine, though contractually responsible for the deliveries, showed complete indifference, worsening the situation. As a result, when the harsh winter arrived, the camp was left without vegetables.

In the Kazakh SSR, Japanese POWs were primarily assigned to labor in the Karaganda and east Kazakhstan regions. However, some were also sent to Almaty, where they took part in constructing various facilities and were usually housed in poorly equipped camps. Nevertheless, according to Andrey Chernov, a former employee of the Department for Work with Prisoners of War and Internees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kazakh SSR, the living conditions of the Japanese were significantly better in Almaty than in other regions. The townspeople treated them with sympathy, and Kazakh women, trying to avoid the guards’ attention, would pass them bread, sometimes even slipping them apples. Small parcels with treats from compassionate locals were not an uncommon occurrence.

According to Chernov’s recollections, the Japanese were exceptionally neat, always cleanly dressed, and maintained impeccable order in their barracks. Discipline was strictly observed, and their careful handling of possessions left a strong impression on everyone who saw them. They planted flowers and grew cucumbers, tomatoes, sunflowers, and even melons in the open areas near the barracksiОн Т. Последний свидетель и последний самурай. Caravan.kz. 2009.

The Japanese POWs in Almaty quickly earned a reputation as diligent workers. In a relatively short time, they contributed to the construction of several important urban landmarks, many of which remain visible in the city today. One notable example is the House of Scientists, located on present-day Jibek Joly Avenue between Pushkin and Valikhanov streets. Built in 1950 by the captured soldiers of the Kwantung Army, the building was intended for prominent members of the Kazakh SSR’s scientific elite and contains thirty apartments.

Another residential building constructed between 1946 and 1948 standing at the corner of Jibek Joly and Dosmukhamedov streets still bears traces of the Japanese POWs. An arch on the building’s facade preserves the date of its construction.

Thanks to the labor of these POWs, several other structures were also built, including the House of TurkSib Workers (located at the intersection of today’s Nazarbayev and Kabanbai Batyr streets) and parts of the tram depot. Japanese POWs also worked on the construction of the southern wing of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, the Almaty Heavy Machinery Plant (AZTM), and the Kirov Plant. They also built the Specialized Linguistic School No. 35, located on Dostyk Avenue, and this building, with its unique architecture, became popularly known as the ‘school with the spheres’.

Today, it’s hard to come across anyone in Almaty who hasn’t heard of the Old Japanese Road, a scenic mountain route in the gorge of the Greater Almaty Canyon within the Ile-Alatau National Park. Built by Japanese POWs, the project began as part of an effort to supply the city with water. A pipeline was laid along the road from the Big Almaty Lake, and hydroelectric power plants HPP-1 and HPP-2 were connected to it. Today, the 14-kilometer-long Old Japanese Road has become a popular tourist destination. Along the way, one can still see remnants of stone structures and engineering work from that era.

After Japan surrendered in the Second World War, over 600,000 soldiers of the Kwantung Army were interned by Soviet forces and deported to the USSR to take part in reconstruction efforts. Among them was a young private named Ahiko Tetsuro, who was sent to one of the largest camps in the Gulag system—the Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, better known as Karlag.

Tetsuro was born in 1929 in Japan in a fisherman’s family, and at the age of fifteen, his father sent him to a military academy in the southern part of the island of Sakhalin, which lies 6.5 kilometers off the coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia in the north and 40 kilometers off the coast of the island of Hokkaido. However, in 1945, when the war ended and southern Sakhalin was ceded to the Soviet Union, the young man remained on the island for another three years, repairing boats and hoping for help from Japan. Soon after, he was arrested, convicted under the notorious Article 58iArticle 58 of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) Penal Code (1926–1961) was the legal basis for prosecuting ‘counter-revolutionary crimes’ under Stalin, defining a broad range of offenses—from espionage and sabotage to ‘anti-Soviet agitation’—as threats to the state. It allowed harsh punishments, including execution, forced labor (gulag), or long prison terms, and was infamously used to justify mass repression during the Great Purge (1936–1938) and beyond. of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), and ended up in the Spassky camp, where he spent six long years. Tetsuro later recalled those days and said:

Japan did not recognize its soldiers as POWs, instead considering them unlawfully detained. This was based on Point 9 of the Potsdam DeclarationiThe Potsdam Declaration, issued on 26 July 1945, by the US, the UK, and China (later joined by the USSR), demanded Japan's unconditional surrender in the Second World War, warning of ‘prompt and utter destruction’ if it refused., which states: ‘The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.’

Of all the countries that fought against Japan, the Soviet Union was the only one to ignore this provision. As a result, Japanese soldiers were sent to corrective labor camps within the territory of Kazakhstan. Of the 58,000 POWs held on Kazakh soil, about 25,000 were placed in the Karaganda region, and most of them eventually returned home. The Soviet Union officially announced the completion of Japanese POW repatriation on 22 April 1950iҚР АП. Ф.708 Оп. 9. Д. 164. Л.49-50.

However, Ahiko Tetsuro was not among those who returned home. After Stalin’s death, the Karlag estate was reorganized in accordance with a decree by the Council of Ministers on 8 May 1953: its administration was dissolved, and the original 226 settlements were consolidated into 16 more efficient districts. Since Ahiko had been a minor at the time of his arrest—barely eighteen—he was granted amnesty. He later recalled those days with bitterness:

But his wandering didn’t end there:

Upon learning that the repatriation of POWs had ended, Ahiko continued writing letters to the Japanese embassy in Moscow for two more years, still hoping to return home. But no reply ever came. Losing hope, he stayed on in KaragandaiKazpravda.kz. (2019, 7 сентября). Ахико Тецуро: из плена — на родину. Retrieved from https://www.kazpravda.kz/articles/view/ahiko-tetsuro-iz-plena--v-rodinu . Later, he settled down in the village of Aktas in the Karaganda region. Ahiko got a job as an electrician in a mine and married a local woman. Gradually, he became part of the community, made friends, and moved forward on his path of social adaptation in his new homelandiЖангуттин Б. О. GUPVI: Военнопленные и интернированные на территории Казахстана (1941–1951). Отечественная история, (2), 2008. С. 107–114. .

Yet, even as Ahiko built a new life in Kazakhstan, the possibility of returning to Japan lingered in the distance—until he faced a defining choice. The Japanese POW who later became a citizen of Kazakhstan ultimately found that his fate lay in his own hands. Despite gaining the opportunity to return home after the restoration of diplomatic relations between Japan and the USSR, he chose not to take that step.

In the post-Soviet period, the story of the ‘last samurai on Kazakh soil’ drew interest in both countries. A play titled Ahiko in Aktas was even dedicated to him and was performed in both Kazakhstan and Japan.

Ahiko Tetsuro passed away in 2020 at the age of ninety-one. The fate of this long-lived man, who survived the brutal camp system, revealed the cruelty of the regime and lifted the veil on the repressive nature of the Soviet totalitarian system. Through his memories, we gain a deeper understanding of the tragic path endured by the thousands of prisoners of Karlag and other camps.