Karafuto Repatriates and the Work of the Hakodate Regional Repatriation Centre, 1945–50

Abstract

This article demonstrates how discourse about those repatriated from Japan’s former colonial empire was constructed in early postwar Japan. US Occupation planning assumed that a repatriate had a ‘home’ to return to from which he or she could make a ‘new’ start. Aware that repatriation was more complex, Japanese officials tried to respond more flexibly but met with little success until an intensifying Cold War rivalry prompted US officials to intervene in repatriate affairs due to a concern that communist ideology might appeal to repatriates. Hokkaido officials’ response to the Cold War imperative for a more nuanced policy toward repatriates from Karafuto (Sakhalin) was to promote a narrative of the ‘Karafuto repatriate’. Intended by officials to help Karafuto repatriates ‘resettle’ in postwar Hokkaido, this narrative harked back to aspects of the settler identity promoted by colonial officials in the 1930s and early 1940s. In addition, using a rare set of notes from officials’ group interviews with repatriates, this article analyses the importance of settler identity for repatriates’ coming to terms with the transition from Karafuto to Sakhalin to Hokkaido. Hokkaido officials' and Karafuto repatriates’ interpretations of regional connections were crucial for reintegrating in trans-war, post-imperial society.