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The Japanese government and media were conspicuously low-key while governments and people the world over denounced the Holocaust in the run-up to Jan. 27, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
No government statements were issued, nor were memorial services planned in Japan for the special date, in stark contrast to its World War II ally Germany, where political leaders poured out to condemn the heinous massacre of millions of Jews and other innocent civilians by the Nazis.
Media coverage of the event were scarce in Japan and the few articles that did touch the subject were usually buried deep inside the pages, another abrupt departure from the blanket media coverage in Germany, in which the feeling of remorse featured high.
Numerous activities were held around the world in recent days to remember the victims of Nazi Germany in World War II.
On Thursday, a remorseful German President Horst Koehler stood side by side with leaders from Poland, France, Russia and Israel at commemorations in the ruins of the Auschwitz camp in Poland.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Tuesday told a gathering attended by Auschwitz survivors that his countrymen have a special duty to keep the memory alive.
"The overwhelming majority of Germans living today bear no guilt for the Holocaust. But they bear a special responsibility," he said.
An estimated 1.5 million people died in the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz, the biggest Nazi concentration camp and most efficient killing machine in the genocide of European Jews.
"Remembering the Nazi era and its crimes is a moral duty," Schroeder said. "We owe this not only to the victims, the survivors and their relatives, but also to ourselves."
As many countries were preparing for memorials and celebrationsfor the 60th anniversary of the victory of the anti-Facist war later this year, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official told Xinhua that no activity whatsoever will be staged this year to mark the anniversary.
Japan's reluctance to face its war time atrocities is proved once more Friday, when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi secured a fresh legal victory in the controversy over his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are honored together with other war dead.
The Naha District Court rejected damages claim filed by 94 plaintiffs against the premier for his visits to the shrine, ruling "there is no need to make a judgment on issues like the responsibility of the defendants since it cannot be said that the prime minister's shrine visits infringed the rights of the plaintiffs."
The ruling did not mention whether the visits have violated Japan's pacifist constitution, which forbids government officials'involvement in religious events in official capacity.
The plaintiffs were seeking a combined 9.4 million yen (about 91,000 US dollars) in damages from Koizumi and the state for emotional anguish over the visits.
Koizumi has made four visits to the shrine since he came into power in 2001, saying he went there to pray for world peace. Amongthe honored in Yasukuni are 14 Class-A war criminals in World War II.
His pilgrimages drew protests both from Asian countries which suffered enormously during Japan's invasion in the 1940s, and fromJapanese citizens. A string of lawsuits were filed in Japan against the visits. But as of now, only one out of six rulings said Koizumi's visits were unconstitutional.
Unlike in Germany, militarism still lingers in Japan 60 years after the war. Some war-time senior officials continued to hold power in the years after the war. Many of Japan's younger generation were not taught of the country's true war time past.
Some Japanese right-wing groups and politicians are clamoring for a revision of the history textbooks, trying to water down Japan's atrocities in the war. Senior government officials cling to rhetoric on the redefinition of Japan's role in the Second World War.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is actively leading a campaign to revise Japan's pacifist constitution, including Article 9, which forbids Japan's possession of a military force and denies the right of engaging in warfare.
With a raft of laws, Japan actually has skirted that basic law and is flexing its military muscle. The Self-Defense Force (SDF) has been dispatched on peacekeeping or assistance missions abroad,including in Iraq, defying its self-defense-orientied operational principle.
Analysts say Japan's unrepentant attitude has become the biggest hurdle in the way of its relations with other Asia-Pacificnations.
Japan, which is seeking a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, cannot win these countries' understanding and sympathy until it learns to face its past and shoulder its due responsibility, observers say.
(Xinhua News Agency January 29, 2005)
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