WWII vets from UK, Australia, Japan heal old wounds

“Today we can remember the past, but we can also honor the change through reconciliation between people”. one hopes in the fullness of time that this will also pertain to relations between Japan, Korea and China

The ministry, however, is seen as reluctant to publicize to its own people the atonement for Japan’s wartime brutality.

Hmmm. I wonder why that is.

The ministry, however, is seen as reluctant to publicize to its own people the atonement for Japan’s wartime brutality.

@Moonraker

The same sentence caught my eye even before reading your comment — it comes from out of nowhere and leaves the reader hanging.

I am guessing "the atonement" being referred to is Japan's apology for its harsh treatment of POWs and the foreign ministry's friendship program where former Allied POWs are invited to visit Japan.

So, reading between the lines, I assume this means that even though the apologies and friendship program are reported by the media abroad, Japan's foreign ministry discourages reporting on these events by the Japanese-language press.

Yeah, I think you are most likely right, Sensato. But why would that be? Perhaps it is PR for overseas but dangerously close to overturning the ideology of innocent victim by admitting it domestically.

The ministry, however, is seen as reluctant to publicize to its own people the atonement for Japan’s wartime brutality.

I saw a decent video from NHK World recently on the story of Japanese nurses who went with the IJA during the war and the conditions they worked under and how they tried to care for their wounded. It was pretty interesting and some of the surviving ladies told interesting stories.

Funny how NHK probably would not do a documentary on the Allied nurses that were captured and survived the Japanese POW camps.

I guess the good take away from this is that the guys who were actually doing the fighting, and not the government paper pushers got to see each other and find closure, and aren't trying to spin things for an agenda.

It would be very distressing for these gentlemen, as I'm sure it is to every visitor from Britain and Australia, to realise that the Thai-Burma Railway exhibit in the museum at Yasukuni Shrine does not acknowledge any use of forced labour. Not even in the English descriptions.

Notice how they treat Westerner victims of Japanese atrocities (even though Japan refuses to let their own people know they apologized to these men), versus how they treat the Asian victims with utter contempt and hatred.