The history of the unspeakable: Shimokawa Masaharu’s The forgotten history of evacuation
Jason MORGAN
ABSTRACT Histories of wartime Japan often focus on the Japanese home islands after Japan’s surrender to Allied forces on 15 August 1945. Japanese citizens living in Korea, Manchuria, and elsewhere in the far-flung Japanese Empire are usually left out of the historiographical record. In a new book about the evacuees—hikiagesha—from the defunct Empire, Shimokawa Masaharu presents a vivid, harrowing portrait of the suffering of those who had to make their way back to Japan after the end of the Greater East Asia War. In particular, Shimokawa focuses on Izumi Sei’ichi, who established a sanatorium and abortuary in Fukuoka for women who had been raped by enemy soldiers.
KEYWORDS: Izumi Sei’ichi; hikiagesha; Japanese Empire; mizuko kuyō; Futsukaichi; Kamitsubo Takashi; Mizuko no Uta; Eugenics Protection Law (Yūsei Hogohō); Okusoko no kanashimi; Yamaguchi; Yamamoto Yoshitake
Notes on contributor
Jason Morgan is an assistant professor at Reitaku University in Chiba, Japan. He has published four books in Japanese, along with two translations (one a collaborative effort) of Japanese books into English—most recently Hata Ikuhiko’s Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone (Hamilton, 2018). His essays have appeared in Japan Review, Michigan Historical Review, Logos, Modern Age, New Oxford Review, Chronicles, Society, Human Life Review, Libertarian Papers, Reitaku Journal, University Bookman, Clarion Review, and the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.