Eight decades since World War II ended, the generation able to recall its horrors firsthand is rapidly shrinking. But student groups across Japan are working to ensure that this generation’s memories will be passed on to younger audiences.
One of them is Peace&voice, a student organization with 18 members from Hokkaido to Fukuoka Prefecture that have been recording the testimonies of survivors for the past four years in prefectures such as Iwate and Kanagawa, and conveying them to elementary school students at events.
The group was founded by Tomoka Kobayashi, now a 21-year-old college student, when she was in her second year of high school. She founded the group to prevent stories of air raids in rural areas from being forgotten.
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