悠仁さま、引揚記念館を訪問　シベリア抑留資料を見学―京都・舞鶴

　秋篠宮家の長男悠仁さま（１８）＝筑波大付属高３年＝は１２日、第２次世界大戦後のシベリア抑留や引き揚げに関する資料を展示する京都府舞鶴市の「舞鶴引揚記念館」を私的に訪問された。
　悠仁さまは地元の高校生らでつくる「学生語り部」の案内を受け、展示資料を熱心に見学。抑留者がシラカバの樹皮にすすで作ったインクで和歌をつづり、日本に持ち帰った「白樺日誌」を見て「見つかったらすぐに没収されてしまうこともあるわけですよね」と話した。
　引き揚げ者を受け入れた舞鶴の港の模型を見た際は「シベリアとか向こうの港からはどれくらいの距離が」と尋ねた。その後、復元された「平引揚桟橋」も訪れた。
　同館では語り部活動を行う同市の８０代女性２人と懇談し、引き揚げ者を出迎えた経験を聞いた。終戦直後の人々の暮らしに話が及び、「お洋服はどうされたのですか」と問い掛けたという。
　宮内庁によると、２０１７年に秋篠宮ご夫妻が訪れた際、同館からいずれは悠仁さまも足を運んでほしいと話があり、２３年夏にも訪問の相談があった。筑波大への進学が決まり、学業に支障がないとして、この時期の訪問が決まった。（2025/02/12-17:29）

Japan's Prince Hisahito, the only son of Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko, visited Wednesday a museum in the western Japan city of Maizuru to learn about the Japanese internees in Siberia and their return to the country after World War II.
   In his private visit to the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum in the city in Kyoto Prefecture, the 18-year-old prince was guided by members of a group of student volunteers to pass down the history of repatriation of the postwar internees in then Soviet labor camps in Siberia to future generations.
   Looking at diaries written with soot ink in the waka poem form on the back of white birch bark sheets that were brought back to Japan by such internees, the prince commented that they might have been confiscated if they had been found at the camps. At a diorama depicting Maizuru Port at the time when the port was serving as the landing venue for the repatriates, he asked how far it was from a port in Siberia or elsewhere they were embarked.
   At the museum, he also met with two female repatriation storytellers in their 80s and heard about their experiences in taking care of the returnees. When it came to the lives of people immediately after the end of the war, the prince made a question regarding the availability of clothing.
   Later, he visited the restored Taira Repatriation Pier at the port.