In many ways, Japan is a model of how a society recovers from the worst extremism. Within a decade of the horrifying brutalities of Imperial Japan in WWII, Japan re-emerged as one of the most pacifist nations on Earth.
Of course, its recovery was helped along by generous US-led reconstruction efforts, and ongoing US shouldering of much of the burden of Japan’s defence (somewhat necessarily, given Japan’s post-war demilitarised constitution). Not having to pay for its own defence immeasurably helped the post-war Japanese economic miracle. And, unlike Europe, Japan repaid America’s generosity by becoming an unswerving ally.
On the other hand, Japan has embarked on a rigorous culture of forgetting. Even today, in Japanese history schoolbooks the 15-year period between the invasion of Manchuria and the bombing of Hiroshima is an almost complete blank. As Japanese journalist Mariko Oi notes, only 19 of the official Japanese history book’s 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.
There was one page on what is known as the Mukden incident, when Japanese soldiers blew up a railway in Manchuria in China in 1931.
There was one page on other events leading up to the Sino-Japanese war in 1937 – including one line, in a footnote, about the massacre that took place when Japanese forces invaded Nanjing – the Nanjing Massacre, or Rape of Nanjing.
There was another sentence on the Koreans and the Chinese who were brought to Japan as miners during the war, and one line, again in a footnote, on “comfort women” – a prostitution corps created by the Imperial Army of Japan.
There was also just one sentence on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Many Japanese, say Oi, deny that the Rape of Nanjing ever happened. It was only when she left Japan to study in Australia that she began to gain a full comprehension of the extent of Japanese war crimes. Many Japanese, though, remain entirely ignorant.
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and ’40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history.
That culture of forgetting means that, while Japan is in almost all ways an exemplary society today, it often makes pronouncements and takes actions that infuriate its neighbours and exasperate its allies. Japanese are mystified. Especially when their own government pretends that even the suffering of Japanese civilians in the war never happened.
More than 100,000 people were killed in a single night 80 years ago Monday in the US firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese capital. The attack, made with conventional bombs, destroyed downtown Tokyo and filled the streets with heaps of charred bodies.
The damage was comparable to the atomic bombings a few months later in August 1945, but unlike those attacks, the Japanese government has not provided aid to victims and the events of that day have largely been ignored or forgotten.
To their credit, survivors of the firebombing and their descendants are pushing back against the official amnesia. So far, with little success.
Elderly survivors are making a last-ditch effort to tell their stories and push for financial assistance and recognition. Some are speaking out for the first time, trying to tell a younger generation about their lessons […]
A group of survivors who want government recognition of their suffering and financial help met earlier this month, renewing their demands.
No government agency handles civilian survivors or keeps their records. Japanese courts rejected their compensation demands of 11 million yen ($74,300) each, saying citizens were supposed to endure suffering in emergencies like war. A group of lawmakers in 2020 compiled a draft proposal of a half million-yen ($3,380) one-time payment, but the plan has stalled due to opposition from some ruling party members.
It seems that the government is just hoping these annoying old codgers will just die and the whole thing will go away. “This year will be our last chance,” says Yumi Yoshida, who lost her parents and sister in the bombing. After all, it’s been 80 years. Even children of the war are now in their ’90s.
Shizuyo Takeuchi, 94, says her mission is to keep telling the history she witnessed at 14, speaking out on behalf of those who died […]
More than 105,000 people were estimated to have died that night. A million others became homeless. The death toll exceeds those killed in the Aug 9, 1945, atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
Some Japanese, at least, are determined not to forget.
Ai Saotome has a house full of notes, photos and other material her father left behind when he died at age 90 in 2022. Her father, Katsumoto Saotome, was an award-winning writer and a Tokyo firebombing survivor. He gathered accounts of his peers to raise awareness of the civilian deaths and the importance of peace.
Saotome says the sense of urgency that her father and other survivors felt is not shared among younger generations.
Though her father published books on the Tokyo firebombing and its victims, going through his raw material gave her new perspectives and an awareness of Japan’s aggression during the war.
She is digitalizing the material at the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, a museum her father opened in 2002 after collecting records and artifacts about the attack.
“Our generation doesn’t know much about (the survivors’) experience, but at least we can hear their stories and record their voices,” she said. “That’s the responsibility of our generation.”
“In about 10 years, when we have a world where nobody remembers anything (about this), I hope these documents and records can help,” Saotome says.
But if they start telling the truth about the Tokyo Firebombing, the next obvious question is Why did it happen? And that question will lead in directions Japanese governments clearly do not want to go.
