Seeds of peace

Zhang Yawen has devoted herself to researching war history.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Fighting against Evil, Zhang Yawen's latest book, talks about the elusiveness of harmony, Yang Yang reports.

Since the end of World War II, Germany and the rest of Europe have been tracking down, arresting and prosecuting Nazi war criminals.

But in Japan the situation has been alarmingly different, Zhang Yawen writes in her new book, Fighting against Evil.

The Chinese-language book, published by Chongqing Publishing House, is a tribute to China's victory over Japan in World War II. China will mark the 70th anniversary of the end of war this year, with large-scale celebrations planned for Sept 3.

On Nov 24, 1948, Class A war criminals from Japan, sentenced by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in trials held in Tokyo, were set free as a result of the support of the United States, Zhang writes in her book. One of them was Nobusuke Kishi, who became Japan's prime minister in 1957.

The author, 71, quotes an editorial by Asahi Shimbun, a Tokyo-based newspaper, after Nobusuke's death in 1960 as saying: "Because Nobusuke Kishi, a Class A war criminal, returned to power as the prime minister, quite a few people think that (it) is the reason why Japanese people cannot account clearly who is to blame for the war."

"They kept denying history, including the Nanjing Massacre, and falsified textbooks to understate their crimes in China, and aim as a whole nation to finally forget that history," Zhang tells China Daily.

"Humans must not forget history, for the present is a repeat of the past."

Zhang devotes most of the book's 353 pages talking about how hard it is to achieve peace, and how some individuals from China, Germany, Denmark and the US made a difference by trying to save as many fellow humans as they could.