Japanese War Orphans in Manchuria (PDF)

MAYUMI ITOH is a former professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.

"During World War II, in emulation of the policies of the Nazis, the Japanese conquerors of neighboring countries sometimes tried to remove the inhabitants through ethnic cleansing and replace them with Japanese settlers. A good example was their occupation ofManchuria from 1931 to 1945. In a truly original book, Mayumi Itoh documents what happened when the Japanese were defeated by the Chinese Communists and the Soviet Red Army. The large number of Japanese families left behind continues to complicate relations between China and Japan to the present day." - Chalmers Johnson, author ofPeasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937 to 1945

"Many books have been written documenting the myriad atrocities of World War II; however, this is the first serious study which documents the plight of Japan s war orphans who were left in Manchuria at the end of the war. Mayumi Itoh s book does more than simply catalogue a period in history. With sensitivity and with scholarship, she places this issue in the broader context of Sino-Japanese relations and also sheds light on how Japan s historical amnesia not only affects its neighbors, but has serious, ongoing ramifications for its own people." - Donald S. Zagoria, Senior Vice President, National Committee on American Foreign Policy