해방 후 일본에서의 조선인미수금 공탁과정과 그 특징

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process and the characteristics of how Japan deposited the accounts due Koreans after defeat in 1945. The number of Koreans forced to mobilize to work in Japan in the late period of Japanese colonization exceeded one million persons. Their pay was postponed through various methods, such as compelled savings, and used as war expenses for the Japanese government or as funds for Japanese companies. After defeat, the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Allied Powers and the Japanese government made the companies deposit the accounts due Koreans in the Japanese Bureau of Judicial Affairs. The Japanese government explained this act by citing the absence of addresses or the impossibility of communication. However, the addresses of the forced mobilization victims were recorded in the report, and communication between Japan and Korea at that time also was possible. The existence of this deposit has not yet been notified to the victims of the forced mobilization, and the amount of the deposit is much less compared to the scale of accounts due because of the omission of the public deposit. Through this deposit the Japanese government could obstruct the expansion of Chongryon (The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan), fulfill the demands of the United States Occupation Forces, and avoid economic difficulties. Japanese companies also received the benefit of their unpaid debt disappearing after depositing a certain portion of the amount. The GHQ had the eyes of the occupation forces, and saw Koreans as targets of public order. It intended to use Japan actively while the United States reorganized the East Asian order in the Cold War. Thus, it permitted the Japanese government to deposit the accounts due Koreans. In the end, seventy years ago, the victims of forced mobilization returned to Korea without receiving their accounts due paid, and the account due still remains unpaid to the victims because of this deposit.