Helena Meyer-Knapp

Teenagers engage in formal group rituals at the memorials associated with key sites –delivering cranes to a

memorial in Hiroshima, for example, or wreath laying at the Mall memorial sites in Washington DC.

In addition, these days the sites provide opportunities to enter more deeply into the lives of specific people whose death is memorialized at that place. Based on the time spent and the demeanor of the students as they explored these sites, it seems likely that these more intimate opportunities offered a deeper experience than the formal group rituals.

In many sites it is possible to find a listing of the names of all those who died. US casualties from World War II are not visible at the Washington DC Memorial, though there is a register on-line, to allow searching for a particular person.

When all the names are printed or engraved at the memorial, the watchers stay a while, to touch and find. They stay even longer when the names are attached to life stories. This has become the practice in Japan in particular.

Some museums and memorials give visitors a chance to comment and also post their comments. Himeyuri, which memorializes the suffering of young Japanese students, compiles special books of school age respondents’ reactions.

Korea was the one place where I observed what seemed to be a requirement of students and other visitors that they craft some kind of response. 

Each of the memorial sites also offers an official statement those who died, not so much a dialogue with them but an affirmation that their deaths are not forgotten nor devalued.

War Memorial Museum Seoul

Showa-Kan Civilians Museum Tokyo

  World War II Memorial The Mall, Washington DC.Hiroshima

Tokyo Memorial for Air Raid Victims