Mae Ngai sits down with historians Ágota Duró ( Hiroshima Jogakuin University) and David Palmer ( University of Melbourne, Australia) to discuss the history of Korean forced labor in Japan during World War II, and the ongoing grassroots movement uncover and expose this tragic history through the excavation and returning of their remains to Korea. Their full article from International Labor and Working-Class History can be found here: Ágota Duró and David Palmer, “Japan’s Forgotten Korean Forced Laborers: The Search for Hidden Wartime Graves in Hokkaido.” International Labor and Working-Class History 106 (2024): 311–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547924000048. *** See also: Higashi Ajia Wakushoppu (East Asia Workshop) https://www.sasanobohyo.com/eacworkshop Shumarinai Forced Labor Museum: https://en.sasanobohyo.com/about-museum *** Works Cited: Ágota Duró, Japanese Advocacy for South Korean Hibakusha: From Colonialism to Cooperation. Bloomsbury Academic, (forthcoming 2027). David Palmer, “Japan’s World Heritage Miike Coal Mine—Where prisoners-of-war worked ‘like slaves,’” The Asia Pacific Journal/Japan Focus 19, no. 13 (July 1, 2021) David Palmer, “The Straits of Dead Souls: One Man’s Investigation into the Disappearance of Mitsubishi Hiroshima’s Korean Forced Labourers,” Japanese Studies 26, no. 3 (December 2006): 335–52. David Plath, So Long Asleep: Waking the Ghosts of a War (Massachusetts: Documentary Educational Resources, 2016) (video documentary) https://filmfreeway.com/940830 Chung Byung-Ho, “Coming Home after 70 Years: Repatriation of Korean Forced Laborers from Japan and Reconciliation in East Asia,” The Asia-Pacific Journal / Japan Focus 15, no. 35 (June 15): 2017. Commission on Verification and Support for the Victims of Forced Mobilization under Japanese Colonialism in Korea, Final Report of the Commission’s Activities (Republic of Korea, June 2016) Janis Mimura, Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/26168. Kim Min-Young, Hoskaido (baehaedo) saspolo byeol-won sojang yugoljosa (Investigation into Remains held by Hokkaido Sapporo Betsuin Temple Annex), Japanese Forced Mobilization Victims Support Foundation, Dec. 2017 Takeuchi Yasuto, Chōsa: Chōsenjin Kyōsei Rōdō—Tankō Hen (Investigation: Korean Forced Labor—Coal Mine Volume) (Tokyo: Shakai hyōronsha, 2013). Takeuchi Yasuto, Senji Chōsenjin Kyōsei Rōdō Chōsa Shiryōshū (Wartime Korean Forced Labor Research Documents) (Kobe Student Youth Center, 2022) *** Working History is a joint project of: The Southern Labor Studies Association (SLSA), https://southernlaborstudies.org/; The Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA), https://lawcha.org/; LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, https://www.dukeupress.edu/labor; and International Labor and Working-Class History, (ILWCH) https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-labor-and-working-class-history; Follow the links to join and subscribe today!
