Japan Emperor, His Family Visit Photo Exhibition on Wartime Tokyo

Tokyo, Dec. 22 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and their daughter, Princess Aiko, visited on Sunday a special photo exhibition themed on Tokyo during World War II. On display at the exhibition at the National Showa Memorial Museum in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward are 40 photographs showing, among other things, damage caused to the Japanese capital by air raids and scenes of students being sent to battlegrounds. The pictures were taken by the late Koyo Ishikawa, a photographer of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department. The family looked at the photos with serious looks on their faces. “The photographs are preserved in good condition,” Emperor Naruhito said. Princess Aiko asked questions such as “Was this photo taken just after an airstrike?” The family then met with people serving as “next-generation storytellers,” who, including at the museum better known as Showa-kan, share knowledge about the war, such as stories passed down from survivors, with museum visitors and others. “How did you become interested in the story?” Empress Masako asked Azusa Toyoda, 46, who mainly talks about the killing of zoo animals at the time to prevent them from escaping amid the chaos of the war. According to an aide, the family hopes that records and materials of the war will be preserved and that the hardships people suffered during and after the war will be passed down to future generations. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]