A 25-year-old Japanese university lecturer has created a virtual Siberian internment camp to help young people better understand the reality of forced labor in the extreme cold and other harsh events experienced by Japanese troops detained by the Soviet Union after World War II.
※I want to contribute to the efforts to prevent the history (of the war) from fading away,§ said Daiki Hama, who lectures at Tama University in Tokyo.
In November 2021, Hama, who was studying digital technology at the time, participated in an initiative to hold an online school festival amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
He re-created a building at the university＊s Tama campus online. Akina Kobayashi, researcher on internment and then associate professor at the university, who saw the digitally re-created structure, then asked him to re-create a detention camp to be used as teaching material.
Kobayashi, now an associate professor at Kanto Gakuin University in Kanagawa Prefecture, was facing difficulties teaching students about history she had never experienced.
※I thought a virtual space would allow (students) to experience Siberian internment,§ Kobayashi said.
Hama borrowed related materials from Kobayashi and visited the Memorial Museum for Soldiers, Detainees in Siberia, and Postwar Repatriates in Tokyo＊s Shinjuku Ward, which has a model of a detention camp.
Hama took about 120 photos at the museum to confirm the accurate locations of the dormitory windows and other features. He spent about a month creating the virtual detention camp with friends from university.
Noting that he also re-created the dining room and surveillance tower, Hama said that people can feel as if they are in the internment camp by wearing a dedicated virtual reality headset.
The virtual camp has been used for hands-on events for children at the museum and training sessions for student storytellers at the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum in Kyoto Prefecture.
※Internment is part of the tragic history of war and impermissible,§ Hama said. ※I hope people won＊t forget this history by understanding with the VR technology the atmosphere of the camp.§
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