The Prisoner of War and Civilian Internment Camp Encyclopedia

Abstract

Despite their being around 180 prisoner of war and civilian internment camps in Japan during the Second World War, little is known about them and few publications trace their history. This paper explains the Japanese-language Prisoner of War and Civilian Internment Camp Encyclopedia, a product of over two decades of research by the POW Research Network Japan. This was the first comprehensive Japanese language publication on these camps and was released in late 2023. This note describes its background, sources, and structure, and the authors’ hopes that it will becomes a key source for researching and learning about Japan’s history of internment.