War survivors association starts campaign to block the rightist school textbook

The Association of Bereaved Families of the War Dead for Peace on June 17 launched a national movement calling for the rightist history textbook written by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform not to be assigned to children.

The association is calling on its members throughout Japan to send postcards to their local boards of education demanding that they not adopt the problematic textbook for their junior high schools.

The association pointed out that the "Society" textbook distorts history by glossing over Japan's war of aggression and goes against the constitutional principles of peace which the war dead might have wanted to leave behind as their last words.

The association, established with the aim of calling on the public for no more war dead or bereaved families, is based on the deep regret that their loved ones were forced to kill other Asian people and were sacrificed in a "glorious death" in the "sacred war."

Members of the association are afraid that their failure to prevent the adoption of the "Society" textbooks might mean complicity in the distortion of history.

"We want the nation's board of education members to know what our husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers were feeling when they died painfully and how we have lived with this deep grief," said the Association representative. (end)