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Tojo's granddaughter: Japan war PM no criminal
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-07-28 14:00

TEXTBOOK REVELATION

The days after Japan's defeat were bewildering for Yuko: she didn't understand why she was ostracised by classmates on the school playground, or why neighbour's children whose parents had died in the war came after her with sticks and stones.

She didn't even find out her grandfather had been hanged until she was in the fifth grade.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (2nd L) follows a Shinto priest, dressed in a white and yellow robe, on a surprise visit to the controversial Yasukuni shrine that prompted angry reaction from China and South Korea.  [AFP]

"One of my classmates used to clutch his throat when he saw me, saying 'Tojo, death by hanging.' I wondered why he did that," she said. "It wasn't until I read in my social studies textbook that my grandfather and six others had been hanged that I knew.

"It was a shock. I thought he had died fighting the war."

Yuko upheld the family code of silence about her grandfather until the early 1990s, when the release of new records of the words of the late Emperor Hirohito that showed him expressing deep trust in Tojo made her feel times had changed.

A memoir about her family was followed by TV appearances and other media interviews, all an attempt to raise interest in what she calls the true history of her grandfather and the war.

"All of Japanese society has been brainwashed by the Allied view of history put forth by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, that the war was an invasive war," she said.

"The tribunal was made up only of victorious nations, there was not one neutral nation involved. So of course it could not be a just trial."

Some conservative politicians have recently aired similar views. The government's top spokesman, Hiroyuki Hosoda, has said such remarks do not reflect the stance of the government, which has accepted the results of the Allied tribunal.

Herself a frequent visitor to Yasukuni, Yuko wants Koizumi to keep his pledge to visit the shrine on the August 15 anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two, an emotive date he has avoided so far for fear of the diplomatic furore it would cause.

"That he doesn't go to Yasukuni (on August 15) just because of the so-called Class A war criminals shows he is a real failure as the nation's top leader," she said.

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