‘Silent Shame’, the darkest memories of her nation

Action on Film Festival nominee for
Best Documentary and
Best Political Statement Movie
by Akiko Izumitani

It will be screened at 2 pm on Friday July 23 at
Regency Academy Theater, Academy 3
1003 E. Colorade Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91105.

The director says: ‘Silent Shame’ is a documentary that looks at why more people aren’t aware of Japan’s war crimes in Asia during World War II, and its effects on society today. Being Japanese, but living in the US, people who haven’t seen the film usually misinterpret me as an unpatriotic person, but I believe that once they see it they will realize the film’s strong anti-war message.
Akiko Izumitani is a Japanese documentary filmmaker based in the US. Inspired by Steven Spielberg, she is committed to using film to convey untold stories, such as in Silent Shame, her own war documentary.
Contact:
Akiko Izumitani
www.silentshamedocumentary.com

Action on Film Festival

http://aoffest.com/2010-nom-results.html

Bio
Akiko Izumitani was born in Japan. Since her childhood, she was interested in humanity. After watching a film, “Schindler’s List,” she was impressed by the power of film conveying untold stories to abroad public. She realized that her interests are films that deal with humanity. In high school, she learned about the Nanjing Massacre and became more interested in the Asian holocaust. She came to the United States to study filmmaking at UCLA, School of Film and Television. She decided to make a documentary to learn more about war crimes and record testimonies to share their stories with more people.

Silent Shame Synopsis
Silent Shame is about a journey of a Japanese-born filmmaker to confront the darkest memories of her country’s involvement in war crimes during WW II and the impact on today’s society.
Why are more people not aware of Japan’s role in war crimes in Asia during WWII? This journey will begin by confronting a modern people with its controversial and sometimes shameful past. A Japanese-born filmmaker learns more about the atrocities committed by her nation through meeting veterans, researchers, and activists.
The film continues by delving into a past that many Japanese find too painful to explore. Archival footage clearly illustrates a basic history of Asia intercut with interviews of Japanese veterans and historical researchers detailing war crimes carried out by the Japanese. This section segues into a segment about “Comfort Women”. Interviews with Korean rape victims and their Japanese perpetrators, finally give a voice to these often forgotten victims of WWII. Human experimentation and biological warfare is explored in segment number three, and in a rare interview, a Japanese veteran details how he assisted in human experimentation. This segment closes with the filmmaker interviewing several American POWs about their brutal treatment during their imprisonment.
In the course of making this documentary, the filmmaker realizes that Japanese researchers and activists receive tremendous amount of resistance on this topic by right wing Japanese. The journey closes with the filmmaker interviewing Japanese veterans, researchers and activists in an attempt to discover why the Japanese people are so reluctant to talk about the unpleasant side of their history.

sponsored by the

Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WW II in Asia
New Jersey-Alliance for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia
New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education

co-sponsored by the Holocaust Resource Center of the Richard Stockton College
of New Jersey, Brookdale Community College’s Center for WWII Studies &
Conflict Resolution and Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center,
and Oakcrest High School, presenting a two and one-half day conference:

“Acknowledgment, Apology, Reconciliation”

for teachers, students, historians, and researchers on ending the tensions felt in
all nations of the Pacific with Japan over unresolved issues of war crimes and
atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces on mainland Asia
and on island nations of the Pacific during WWII. The conference will also
address issues in the larger context of human rights violations, global
citizenship, and resolution of past historical injustices.
October 8, 9, 10, 2010 on the campus of  Oakcrest High School
1824 Doctor Dennis Foreman Drive, Mays Landing, New Jersey 08330

Program: Plenary sessions, breakout discussion groups, keynotes, photo exhibits,
documentary films, and book sales.

Friday afternoon and evening: Registration, photo exhibit, film, light dinner, speakers,
and informal discussions.

Saturday all day and evening: Speakers on war history (including eye witness accounts),
educational issues (especially related to teaching in American high schools), evening
banquet, keynote, film, informal discussions with authors and researchers.

Sunday morning: Holocaust Resource Center of the Richard Stockton College of NJ
visit, speakers, discussion of potential follow-on education actions and activities, and
lunch at Oakcrest High School.

Sunday afternoon: Business and planning meeting for
Global Alliance and Affiliate organizations, open to members of all Affiliate organizations.
International Education Conference on the History of WWII in Asia
Preliminary Program and Speakers

Documentary Film Presentations:

“Iris Chang–The Rape of Nanking”
The life and work of Iris Chang; Q&A with Drs. Shau-Jin and Ying-Ying Chang

“Torn Memories of Nanjing” (in Japanese with English subtitles)The apology of Japanese soldiers for the Nanjing atrocity; Q&A with Ms. Tamaki Matsuoka

“Lessons in the Blood”
Post-war reconciliation through history lessons; Q&A with Mr. James Hong

Confirmed speakers:
Mr. James Bradley, history researcher and author: Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys, and
Imperial Cruise
Dr. Werner Gruhl, history researcher and author: Imperial Japan’s World War Two: 1931-1945
Ms. Kang Jian, attorney and human rights activist in China
Ms. Thekla Lit, human rights activist and co-Chair Canada-ALPHA
Ms. Tamaki Matsuoka, Japanese film maker and director: “Torn Memories of Nanjing”
Prof. Su Zhiliang, Shanghai Normal University, China
Ms. Wang Xuan, human rights activist and history researcher in China
Dr. Paul Winkler, Executive Director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education
Prof. Zhang Lian-hong, Nanjing Normal University, co-author with Prof. Hu Hua-ling: The
Undaunted Women of Nanking

Invited Speakers and Panel Members:
Government and political leaders from United States, China, Japan, and Korea
Professors, teachers, and academic researchers
Activists from the US, Canada, Asia, and Europe
Panels and Workshops to be Announced

International Education Conference on the History of WWII in Asia
Conference Registration Form
Name: ______________________________________________________________
Occupation/profession: _______________________________________________
Agency/educational institution: _________________________________________
Position: ____________________________________________________________
Home address: _______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Telephone/email: ______________________/______________________________
Need help with travel? __________
Registration Fees:
- All 3 days (including all meals*) ——————————————————— $130
- Saturday: All day/evening (including banquet & evening program) ——— $100
- Saturday: Daytime only (not including banquet & evening program) ——– $80
- Sunday: Morning only (including lunch) ———————————————– $50
- Discount: 40% for teachers and 60% for students
Professional Development: Max 15 credits (depending on length of participation)

Please return form and registration payment by September 24, 2010 to:
Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia
P.O. Box 1323
San Carlos, California 94070-7323
Further information: peter.stanek@global-alliance.net
* Includes 2 dinners, 2 lunches, 2 continental breakfasts, and 2 coffee breaks

http://www.timeout.com/cn/en/beijing/aroundtown/feature/10088/beijing-international-movie-festival-june-7-30.html

Akiko Izumitani is a Japanese documentary filmmaker based in the US.
Inspired by Steven Spielberg, she is committed to using film to
convey untold stories, such as in Silent Shame, her own war documentary.

The director says: ‘Silent Shame is a documentary that looks at why
more people aren’t aware of Japan’s war crimes in Asia during World
War Two, and its effects on society today. Being Japanese, but living
in the US, people who haven’t seen the film usually misinterpret me
as an unpatriotic person, but I believe that once they see it they
will realize the film’s strong anti-war message.

‘I was inspired to make this film after seeing Minoru Matsui’s
documentary Japanese Devils, and if it wasn’t for him introducing me
to many Japanese war veterans the film wouldn’t have been made.

‘After interviewing countless victims, historians and veterans I
didn’t find myself conflicted as a Japanese person, but more
disturbed by the brutality of the crimes themselves. It was
unbelievable to me to learn how people were capable of being so cruel
to one another and that there exists today such strong anti- Japanese
sentiment.

‘But the film isn’t about nationalities, it’s about learning about
the horrible things that have gone on in the past so that we can
hopefully not repeat them.’

” About the Book

….. Among these humanitarian heroes was Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and acting president of Ginling College. She and Tsen Shui-fang, her Chinese assistant and a trained nurse, turned the college into a refugee camp, which protected more than 10,000 women and children during the height of the ordeal. …

The Undaunted Women of Nanking juxtaposes the two women’s wartime diaries day-by-day from December 8, 1937, through March 1, 1938. Both diaries provide vital eyewitness accounts of the Rape of Nanking and are unique in their focus on the Ginling refugee camp and the sufferings of women and children. Tsen Shui-fang’s diary is the only known daily account by a Chinese national written during the crisis and not retrospectively. …… Tsen Shui-fang’s diary has never before been published in English, and this is its first translation.

Editors Hua-ling Hu and Zhang Lian-hong have added many informative annotations to the diary entries from sources including the proceedings of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial of 1946, Vautrin’s correspondence, John Rabe’s diary, and other historical documents. …..some of which appear in print here for the first time. ”

It is an honor that AOHWA can play a small role in the publishing of this book.

‘Lost Battlefield’ of WWII found

Site of largest battle between Australian and Japanese forces discovered in Papua New Guinea

The Legacy of Mad Doctors
That’s great. There are still doctors who are willing to chastise the unconscionable Bush administration of using medical professionals to develop “guidelines” for torturing prisoners and provide legal cover for interrogators (“Doctors Who Aid Torture,” Jun 7).
However, let’s not forget that delegates of the American Medical Association (AMA) and their counterparts from Europe and Japan ganged up on Dr. Michael Franzblau of Univ. of California, San Francisco to defeat his resolution at the annual World Medical Association (WMA) year after year from 1996 through 2003. His resolution asking that the present Japan Medical Association repudiates the actions of physicians in the biochemical warfare unit (a.k.a.Unit 731) of the Imperial Japanese Army in WWII was repeatedly greeted with overwhelming hostility from his fellow American doctors and those from Allied nations.
By 2004, WMA went so far to change its by-laws so individual members are forbidden to introduce such resolution according to the presiding officer of the Associate members of the WMA.
The historical facts backing Dr. Franzblau’s resolution are ample in public records and national archives, including a NY Times article (“Shouting the Pain From Japan’s Germ Attacks,” 11/23/2002). Immediately after the “Doolittle Raiders” were rescued by the Chinese peasants after the Tokyo Raid in 1942, Japan unleashed its deadly germ warfare attacks killing 250,000 civilians in one Chinese province alone. The final crash scene in the 2001 movie “Pearl Harbor” depicted the beginning of that tragic historical page.
While Americans generally despise fat cats to buy election, such as recent cases in California and New York City, many do not realize that Japan Inc. is buying its premium membership in the United Nations and numerous international organizations, including its persistent attempt to buy a permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council with veto power. Power corrupts and corrupted often gain power!
Ignatius Y. Ding
Executive Vice President
Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia
http://www.global- alliance. net

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Taiwan’s Senkaku activists eye Chinese cash

By MARTIN WILLIAMS
Kyodo News
TAIPEI — With political and financial patronage drying up at home, Taiwan-based activists are working on an international alliance to claim the Senkaku Islands for China.

The uninhabited islands, which lie between Taiwan and Okinawa, are claimed by Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo.
For the governments, the larger issues over the islets — known in Taiwan and China as the Diaoyutai — have been territorial control and exploiting oil and natural gas reserves.
For Taiwanese fishermen, however, the dispute has led to ongoing confrontations with Japanese patrol vessels and exclusion from what they claim to be ancestral fishing grounds.
A Taiwanese activist group, the Chinese Diaoyutai Defense Association, has responded to the impasse by merging a claim of Chinese sovereignty over the islands with advocacy for the fishing industry.
Drawn from a loose, decades-old coalition known as the Alliance for the Defense of Diaoyutai, the group was registered in 2008 after its application was rejected by the government of then President Chen Shui-bian the year before.
The group claims 100 members from around Taiwan and organizes activities in parks and university campuses every two to three months to promote its cause.
It hopes by the end of the year to travel again to the disputed waters on chartered vessels but may not be able to pull off such an event given its experience with government intervention in 2009.
Huang Hsi-lin, secretary general of the group, said he learned from that aborted campaign and will be more secretive in preparing expeditions.
Previous campaigns have seen shore landings, arrests, an activist vessel being rammed by a Japanese patrol ship and, in 1996, the death of an activist from Hong Kong.
This year, complications are already emerging.
On April 30, Taipei announced an agreement with Tokyo to strengthen ties in various sectors after a period of tension stemming from sovereignty issues, including the Senkaku dispute.
Notably, the agreement includes enhanced communications on maritime security.
Meanwhile, the Ma Ying-jeou administration is beginning to ask questions about the association’s intentions this year, potentially threatening boat operators with impoundment and cancellation of licenses.
More seriously for the association, ennui among the general public and the disappearance of local sources of funding have forced activists to turn to businesspeople in China to fund their activism.
Huang declined to name companies, locations or businesses for fear they would suffer retribution from Chinese authorities, but he did say his group had approached them “reluctantly.”
Skeptical observers who sense more ideology than pragmatism in this agenda may feel vindicated by deepening ties between this group and Diaoyutai activists in China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as overseas Chinese groups in the Americas and Europe.
Huang said the groups are working to build a formal alliance, though more talks are needed to integrate groups from outside Asia.
A conference of delegates from all locations set for Sept. 11 at the National Central Library in Taipei is expected to accelerate formation of an umbrella organization.
After that, the groups will look to June 17, 2011, the 40th anniversary of what Huang says was the day the United States granted sovereignty over the group of islets to Japan.
To mark the occasion, Huang envisages a flotilla of activists setting out from ports around the region and converging on the islands.
“We’d be beyond the control of the Taiwan authorities. Ma won’t be able to do a thing if the boats are coming from everywhere, not just from Taiwan,” he said.
The association is a marginal activist group, but it is linked to a wider network of Taiwanese organizations and individuals with more mainstream appeal and influence.
On March 27, in a statement released by the prounification Chinatide Association, the Chinese Diaoyutai Defense Association was named as a member of the Cross-Strait Peaceful Development Forum, a new gathering of organizations including leftist groups, Greater China nationalists, Chinese immigrant advocates and publishing companies that support unification.
Award-winning Taiwanese film director Hou Hsiao-hsien was one of the keynote speakers at the founding ceremony for the forum, whose goals include abolition of the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. law that authorizes military assistance for Taiwan, and ending U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
But Huang was adamant his group represents the interests of fishermen first and would happily consider a deal with Tokyo that allows access for fishermen without invoking sovereignty.
“The thing is, we’re not willing to tilt toward China; we have our own approach to matters,” he said. “The problem is that Taiwan-Japan government relations have put the squeeze on us, the defenders of Diaoyutai, forcing us to look elsewhere for support.”
Huang repeatedly complained of pressure from the Ma government, partly because it wants to improve relations with Tokyo, but also because of close ties with Japan among legislators on both sides of the political fence.
Sunday, May 2, 2010

READERS IN COUNCIL

Share Okinawa’s military burden

By DONALD SEEKINS
Nago, Okinawa
Regarding the April 28 article “Hatoyama edges nearer decision about Futenma”: Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been getting a lot of criticism for ambiguities relating to relocation of U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma, and Okinawans are understandably feeling betrayed now that it seems the new base will remain inside the prefecture.
In my opinion, the base should be moved to some other part of Japan because the nation as a whole benefits from the security relationship with Washington, and Japanese outside of Okinawa have a duty to share what should be a national — not just Okinawa’s — burden.
Normally, I would be opposed to foreign bases in Japan or any other country, but the situation in East Asia is peculiar. States in the region — including China, North and South Korea, and Japan — are extremely nationalistic and there is no regional institutional framework such as the European Union or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to negotiate and mitigate interstate conflicts, especially never-ending territorial disputes such as China and Japan’s claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands.
The diplomatic atmosphere is often polluted by jingoism and “blood and soil” rhetoric that reminds me of Europe before 1914. In such an environment, the U.S. military presence plays a stabilizing role; without it, the region would probably be plunged into a costly and dangerous arms race that might involve deployment of nuclear weapons not only by China and North Korea but South Korea and Japan.
East Asian political leaders should begin the long process of building a strong regional framework for peaceful cooperation. But until that happens, the American presence seems to be the least of many evils. And mainland Japanese, rather than becoming hysterical over North Korea and other, often-fantasized, threats to their homeland, should suck it in and accept a U.S. base in their part of the country.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.

http://www.laemmle.com/viewmovie.php?mid=5641

Nationalist Army’s records/memories are kept.