Episode Details

In the aftermath of World War Two, Soviet Union forces rounded up 570,000 Japanese soldiers and put them to work in concentration camps. They also captured an unknown number of Japanese civilians, among them Ahiko Tetsuro, a teenager at the time. He was eventually released, but due to a government designation, he couldn't go back to his homeland. When he died in 2020, aged 89, he was the last Japanese person still living in Kazakhstan out of the many who were sent to toil in Soviet gulags. A new movie tells the story of his struggle.