Japan gov't launching 1st exhibit on former soldiers traumatized by WWII
This is the first special exhibition by the Japanese government on former Japanese soldiers who were emotionally traumatized by their wartime experiences. The soldiers developed PTSD due to the harsh realities in the battlefield and their acts of aggression during the war.
The simplified exhibition using panels and other materials will run until Oct. 19, shedding light on the number of traumatized soldiers and their treatment, and the Kohnodai Army Hospital in Chiba Prefecture (present-day National Kohnodai Medical Center) that accommodated them. From around February 2026, the ministry will launch a permanent exhibition based on the findings of its survey since fiscal 2024 at the same museum, which exhibits historical materials about wounded and sick veterans.
During World War II, many soldiers were hospitalized due to mental disorders, but the then Japanese military denied the presence of such patients. For a long time after the war, the affected former soldiers and their families continued to perceive the conditions as a "stigma" and would not open up about their experiences, leaving the real circumstances long untold.
In recent years, the children of former soldiers formed a family association and have continually demanded that the government conduct fact-finding surveys. Since fiscal 2024, the welfare ministry has collected and analyzed medical charts of patients who were hospitalized in former army and navy hospitals, and has also examined the lives of families of former servicemen diagnosed with mental disorders by referencing materials including written testimonies of their experiences retained at Shokei-kan.
Akio Kuroi, a representative of a group of families of former servicemen suffering from PTSD and the citizens supporting them, which has called for the government to carry out fact-finding investigations, commented, "The presence of soldiers who were psychologically destroyed had not widely been known, and there were few researchers, but the issue has lately been gaining social recognition. It marks a significant step forward for the government to hold an exhibition on soldiers who sustained invisible wounds."
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