Japan Should Teach Horrors of WWII

I was struck by the telling juxtaposition of two stories in the same section of the newspaper: “Anti-Japan Fury Spreads Through China’s Streets” and “Remembering Buchenwald” (April 11).

While German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder mourns those massacred by his countrymen during World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visits a shrine honoring those who perpetrated similar horrors.

Rather than tiptoeing around the issue of Japan’s wartime culpability in continued attempts to mollify their nationalist constituency, the leaders of Japan should instead attend to the proper education of their youth, who do not deserve to be shielded from the facts of history. Although no amount of contrition by politicians will ever sufficiently atone for the sins of their predecessors, blatant refusal to even acknowledge the magnitude of such crimes chillingly raises the possibility of the capacity to repeat them.

Michael Miyamoto

Mission Viejo