Public memory of World War II in Japan

Public memory often fails to encompass varied perspectives on past events, representing exclusively the collective understanding of one group or nation. Most nations shape history through personalized narratives, which remember their own motivations in conflicts, neglect their harms done against others, or memorialize past harms and traumas for reasons such as collective identity, nationalism, or guilt. However, while public memory is similarly controlled from nation to nation, various scholarship has illuminated changes within Japanese World War II education, and many scholars have discussed its potential impact to Japanese World War II public memory. To fully analyze Japanese public memory and the influence of these changes, this thesis compiled interviews from Japanese college students concerning their public memory of World War II. Through these interviews, this paper examined current Japanese public memory of World War II and its influencing factors, specifically Japanese education, museums and memorials, and popular culture. This thesis identifies three distinct historical narratives of justification, victimization, and pacifism throughout present-day Japanese public memory and argues nationalists utilize these historical narratives to shape public memory and unify Japanese national identity.