Visit Australia in 1996
At Ex-POW Campsite in Cowra Shoichi Shimomura
Translated into English by Yoshikazu Kondo
When I stood at the ex-POW campsite in a beautiful green Cowra field, the suicidal breakout by some one thousand one hundred Japanese POWs about 50 years ago seemed like a far-away dream.

The Japanese people during the Pacific War were exactly like the believers of the Aum Supreme Truth religious cult, and the Japanese Islands were exactly like huge Aum meditation and accommodation places (called Satian) which are closed to the outside world.

The successful brainwashing of the Japanese nation through the education system, according to the bigotry, self-righteous Imperial historical and militaristic view, disregarded fundamental human rights and oppressed the people, which resulted in the tragedy of the Pacific War, the dreadful breakout in Cowra, and eventually the tragedy of the Naoetsu POW camp.

A few hundred of gravestones for the Japanese soldiers and civilians resting in the foreign soil have appealed strongly to us not to repeat the same mistake.