Berkley Center

About a two minute walk away from my dorm, tucked away in a corner of the second floor of a nearby building is the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM). It’s small and only run by a few older women and a few interns. I’m the only one there on a Saturday. Nearly everything is written in Japanese, and they have the pictures of old women who have spoken out about the comfort women in World War II. Most stories were told decades after the end of the war, and the museum now tries to honor and preserve this dark part of history. In particular, there is a quilt created by a survivor of this system graphically showing the brutality of the Japanese soldiers. With such displays, WAM shows the other facets of World War II in the Pacific.

However, unlike the display at WAM, the narrative of the Japanese government revolves around its own victimization. There are reminders throughout the country of the Japanese cost of the war. The peace park in Hiroshima is solemn despite the number of people who are there. The historical past is still very present even 70 years later. While Japan suffered greatly both in human loss and civil destruction, the war crimes that Japan committed have never been properly acknowledged nor apologized for.

The legacy of World War II continues to haunt Japan, the scars of the past never having really healed over. From a first glance, Japan seems to have recovered with one of the largest economies in the Pan-Pacific region and a flourishing culture, but many of the issues stemming from World War II remain unresolved.

One of the problems plaguing the Japanese conservative party is the annual commemoration at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Several leaders of the conservative party attend to pay their respects to the soldiers interred there, some of whom are former war criminals. The governments of South Korea, China, and the Philippines, among others directly affected by the invasions and expansion of the Japanese army, have all registered their objections to the practice.

Some of the popular narratives of World War II gloss over the atrocities that occurred. The Rape of Nanjing is rarely discussed in textbooks, and the history of the comfort women has been watered-down and distorted. Now, many Japanese remain unaware of the magnitude of the Japanese war crimes of World War II.

Every August, a small minority take to the streets of Tokyo and demand a formal day of recognition for the comfort women’s abuse. However, other than these demonstrators and smaller organizations like WAM, the crimes are rarely recognized.

In the past year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s romanticized remarks about World War II and the recent unveiling of a Japanese warship have sparked new tension in the region. The persisting conflicts over claims to islands with Taiwan, China, and South Korea have sparked a dialogue that continues to date back to the unresolved tensions of post-World War II reparations. The claims in international waters have been disputed with each side having a claim to the historical precedence. Many international bodies view Japan’s claims as a new form of the imperialism that dictated foreign policy in the early twentieth century.

For the scholarly and those interested in the era, the pains of World War II still exist. For a large number of people, though, particularly among the younger generations, it is not discussed openly. While the burden of the history is placed on the older generations, as the population ages what will happen to this narrative that is already being forgotten in Japanese history? Perhaps with a change of political power to the liberal left, the past will be formally acknowledged and the remnants of World War II can begin to be properly discussed and handled. Until then, though, Japan is suffering in a guise of ignorance and one-sidedness that only reemphasizes the importance of WAM and other similar organizations to hold Japan accountable.