4th C R O S S – C U R R E N T S F O R U M KE YNOTE SP E E CH Walkin g A porias: R em em b rance and Politics am ong Jap an’ s Gulag Veterans Andrew E. B arshay Pro fesso r o f Histo ry, UC B erkeley Tuesday, June 23 ~ 2:00 pm Farewell (1967) by KAZUKI Yasuo. At the close of World War II, well over 600,000 soldiers of Japan’s Kwantung Army surrendered to Soviet forces and were transported to labor camps, mainly in Siberia but extending to Mongolia, Central Asia, and European Russia. Somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 died in captivity; most of the rest returned to Japan between 1947 and 1949. In this talk, Professor Barshay will discuss the interplay of individual remembrance with organized political activity by returnees, focusing on the sharp divide among them between Communist Party-affiliated and anticommunist groups—while also calling attention to those whose politics consisted of a refusal to affiliate. In addition to weighing the significance of the so-called Siberian Internment for postwar Japanese society, politics, and culture, the speaker will also locate this episode in the longer history of involuntary border crossings and displacements that accompanied the total wars of the twentieth century. I ns t it ut e of E a s t A s ia n St udie s Univ e r s it y of Ca lifor nia , Be r ke le y 1995 Univ e r s it y A v e nue (a t M ilv ia ), 5 t h floor ht t ps :/ / c r os s -c ur r e nt s .be r ke le y .e du/ for um