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Fighting for Peace After War: Japanese War Veterans recall the war and their peace activism after repatriation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Kaneko Kotaro ,
Tokuro Inokuma ,
Kosuke Takahashi  and
Linda Hoaglund
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Summary

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Three aging veterans of Japan's Imperial Army discuss their postwar commitment to peace activism in Japan and their current efforts to find young people willing to carry on their work as they confront their gradual decline and inevitable deaths. One veteran was incarcerated in a Chinese “re-education” camp for his war crimes against Chinese civilians, much like the veterans featured in the documentary film, Japanese Devils. Although neither of the other two veterans committed war crimes, each put himself through a soul-searching reevaluation of his loyalty to the Emperor and conviction that he had fought for a righteous cause. The three veterans share a deep commitment to speaking about the actual horrors of war and to preserving the testimony of other veterans who are slowly dying.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 11 , November 2008 , e16
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008