Looking Back at the Starting Point

I joined the Memorial Service conducted by the 68th Graduating Class of the former Japanese Naval Academy in May this year as usual. They entered the academy in 1937 and graduated from it in 1940, one year and four months prior to the Second World War. Out of 300 graduates, 200 died during the war. The survivors, feeling the eyes of the public, however, refrained from conducting memorial services for the dead for years before they finally decided to go ahead. This year it was the 37th annual memorial service.

The classmates, who are now 84 years old, the bereaved families and other people concerned gathered, went through a wide well-polished corridor and sat in the main building of the shrine, which was surrounded by trees with young green leaves. The sound of clapping hands for the service echoed in the silent woods, while Sake wine, products of farms and mountains as well as of the sea were served for the deceased. I was participating piously in the service, which is part of the Japanese culture.

Please allow me to reveal something personal. Takashi Sunaga, my uncle, was one of the students of the 68th Graduating Class. Near the end of the war he went to Germany to receive a U-boat and departed the port of Kiel for Japan, but they never completed the journey. At the news of his being ‘killed in action,’ my young mind was torn up with sorrow and anger. The strong shock is still vivid in my memory, although it took place in 1944. I then realized that many people went through similar experiences during wars. This is the starting point for me to be involved in UNESCO activities.

In 1944, Allied Ministers of Education met and decided to establish a permanent organization for education and culture as a specialized agency of the United Nations, and UNESCO was founded the following year. The Japanese people, who longed for peace after their defeat, sympathized with the spirit of UNESCO, started “UNESCO movements in private sectors” to support UNESCO and created UNESCO associations (at the beginning they were called UNESCO cooperation associations) at various places in Japan. The Meguro UNESCO Association, which is one of them, was founded at the Meguro City Hall on October 3, 1954. Thanks to the effort of many people, we opened our own office at Gohongi Primary School last fall. About half a century ago the Meguro UNESCO Association initiated its activities with the opening of the “UNESCO School for primary schoolchildren” in Gohongi. We are now back to the same area where we started, and the need for youth activities is as strong as ever.