Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/55156

Grassroots activism has been one of the ways to take part in public debates concerning history and memory of the Asia-Pacific War in contemporary Japan. For many civil society organisations bringing together citizens with critical views of Japan’s role in the war, passing down testimonies about Japanese aggression in Asia has been an important undertaking, mostly because the testimonies reveal the horrors of the war thus promoting peace, but also because they recognise the suffering of non-Japanese victims. Fushun’s Miracles Inheritance Association is a citizen group that collects and publicises war testimonies uttered by Japanese veterans who confessed to their wartime crimes in China. This essay examines memory work of the Inheritance Association and contextualises it within Japanese efforts to address the war past at the popular level.