WW2-ANNIVERSARY/JAPAN-SHRINE Crowds gather at controversial war shrine for WW2 anniversary

Record ID: 143821

  • Title: WW2-ANNIVERSARY/JAPAN-SHRINE Crowds gather at controversial war shrine for WW2 anniversary
  • Date: 15th August 2015
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (AUGUST 15, 2015) (REUTERS) PEOPLE WAITING FOR WOODEN GATES AT TOKYO YASUKUNI SHRINE FOR WAR DEAD TO OPEN PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH WOODEN GATE FLOWER MOTIF ON SHRINE CURTAIN HUNG IN FRONT OF GATE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE OFFERING PRAYER AT SHRINE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH AND BOWING AT SHRINE THRESHOLD VARIOUS OF PEOPLE RINSING MOUTH VARIOUS OF PEOPLE MINGLING
  • Embargoed: 30th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8L7KVME3F3RNHYS0L2VGYA8XC
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Crowds arrived early on Saturday (August 15) offered prayers on the 70th anniversary since the end of World War Two at the Yasukuni shrine in downtown Tokyo, where leaders convicted as war criminals by Allied Tribunal are honored with war dead.
    Although Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not visit this year, the public turnout, according to police was the biggest in recent years.
    Some took this opportunity to reflect on the development Japan has made over the past 70 years.
    Seventy-two-year old Shizuo Matsuda, who was born right after the war, said he never wants to see Japan go through the same suffering it did during its post-war days.
    "I was still a baby when the war ended so I can't remember much, but I did experience severe poverty growing up. I never want Japan to go through that again."
    But many who came, came to express their gratitude toward the war dead.
    "I came here to express my gratitude toward all the heroes who helped protect Japan at that time," 60-year old Mieko Ikeda, who works as a staff at a religious group called Happy Science, told Reuters.
    Thirty-year old Erin Asada, a Japanese who grew up in the United States said that in school, she learned about World War Two through the eyes of the U.S. But today, she visited the shrine where her grandfather is honored as one of the war dead, to contemplate what the Japanese felt during World War Two.
    "I've come to understand that the people who fought in World War Two for Japan were actually fighting for the country trying to defend the country. And also, even fighting against the wave of colonialism that was coming from the western world," Asada said.
    "So, I came here, they are my ancestors, my grandfather fought in the war, so I wanted to come here to kind of feel the atmosphere, and also maybe see how I feel."
    The shrine is seen by critics such as China, parts of which were occupied by Japan before and during World War Two, and South Korea, where bitter memories of Japan's 1910-1945 colonization persist, as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, because it honors wartime leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals along with millions of war dead.
    Sino-Japanese ties have chilled in recent years due to feuds over Japan's wartime history, bitter memories of which persist in China, as well as territorial rows and mutual mistrust over Abe's bolder security policies and China's military assertiveness.
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