==JAPAN: KM== [Education]

Fifty years have passed since World War II, so recently people were asked some "True or False" questions like "Japan caused the war in order to protect the Asian interest," and "America was allied with Japan in World War II." Twenty or thirty percent of the young people said "These are correct." Very shocked, I couldn't help but wonder about the case of this unfortunate condition. Some days ago, I read a morning newspaper which showed this surprising data about the percentage of people who don't know the real facts of the war.
Germany is the country in the same situation as our Japan, because it, too, was a loser in wartime. On television, there was the story of one family in Germany. When two girls in the family started to learn about the former acts of inhumanity in their elementary school, their father was deeply distressed. He wanted to tell the girls the truth about their grandfather. That is, he had actually worked at the Jewish people's "camp" at Auschwitz. Finally he had made a decision. He wrote a letter to his father who lived in another place, and asked him to talk about his experiences to his daughters. The grandfather at first hesi- tated, but later consented. The family went to Auschwitz all together, and the grandfather told slowly that he actually had killed the people who had been brought to the camp because of an order from the Nazis.
In this program, I admired Germany's attitude toward the old stains for two reasons. The first point is the family's wise decision to hand down the old inci- dent. I want to praise the father's and grandfather's courage. They were in pain telling to their lovely girls that the grandfather had taken part in genocide . But their brave behavior has great meaning, and the girls must have felt their heart. The second point is the German's strong will not to repeat the tragedy. Their will is unified and being carried out. All students have a legal obligation to learn about the war crimes. To make it easy, a textbook has been printed in the form of a magazine. Therefore, to say "There was no genocide" constitutes a major crime. Nevertheless, there were people longing for that dismal period, and some who still adore Hitler Now they are called "Neo Nazis " I am very sad because of it, and feel it out of date.
Compared with the case of the Germans, our government turns our eyes away from what Japan did. They try to kill the facts as past events. For exam- ple, during the making of textbooks, they are apt to keep some part, which is disadvantageous for them, out of sight. In fact, at the Diet one minister said, "It is not a proven fact that Japanese armed forces slaughtered in China." What an ignorant and irresponsible statement! I am ashamed of selecting such people as our nation's representatives. Such attitude of the government will surely breed ignorant and indifferent young people in Japan But, not to be pessimistic, seeds of hope are growing up. In Nagasaki, Hiroshima, and Okinawa, which were the principal battlefields in Japan, we can see bereaved families' sorrow, fury over the meaningless war, and their wish for world peace.
Last summer, I went to Okinawa with my family, where there are a lot of monuments of persons killed in the war. Among them, the most impressive one is "Himeyuri-no-Tou." It is a monument to many girl students aged 12 to 18. They cared for injured soldiers as nurses in the making, and they were cornered in a cave with no medicine, no water, and no food. Then at last, they were killed by a bomb or had committed suicide. When I saw the innocent girls photo- graphs (they were almost the same age as I), and read the survivors' memoirs, I couldn't stop crying.
Then, I wondered, in order not to make the same mistake again, what must we do? First, we must learn and recognize the past faults like the Germans are doing. Concerning this point, I am thankful for my parents who told me a lot of the truth, and gave me many chances to learn. Next, we must take a responsible attitude toward the world and hand it down to the coming generations.

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COMMENT

It needs great courage to recognize one's own fault. But, it's necessary to avoid repeating the same fault. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. So the fault must not be covered. But there are a lot of Japanese who don t know about the real facts of the war well. It may have resulted from our being cowardly to face our own faults. She seems to have had good experiences to learn the true picture of the tragic war in Okinawa. I think her attitude to look the war in the face is indispensable to us all.

AKISA YAMAGIWA