LONDON -- Keiko Holmes had expected hostility, but when she attended the annual conference of the British Far East Prisoners of War Association in London in 1991, the bitterness harbored by the more than 1,000 veterans and their families present nearly erupted into violence.
To many it seemed a deliberate insult: a lone Japanese woman intruding on a reunion of Japanese prison camp survivors. A torrent of insults were directed at her.
Shaken, Holmes tried to justify her presence. She told those who would listen about a memorial in a village in Mie Prefecture to honor 16 British POWs who had died in a nearby prison camp. She held up photos of the village, named Iruka, and asked for help in tracking down survivors of the camp.