| May 21, 2005 |
| "Drawings of the Okinawa War" Exhibition Opens in Okinawa |
 |
| Okinawa Soka Gakkai youth vowed to succeed "the heart of peace" and to work for the lasting happiness of the Okinawans |
On May 20, "Drawings of the Okinawa War: Heartbreaking Remembrances of the Shimanchu ('Islander,' in Okinawan)" opened at a gallery located in Tenbusu Naha in Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture. The Soka Gakkai Okinawa Peace Committee, the Women's Peace and Culture Conference and the Student Division Peace Committee organized and created the exhibition, which has traveled to 44 municipalities in Okinawa, as well as over 70 cities throughout Japan, to date. The show displays some 140 works out of around 700 drawings drawn by Okinawans who experienced the Okinawa War (April-June, 1945) first hand. Nariyuki Agarie, honorary professor of the University of the Ryukyus, commented that these drawings by ordinary people express a universal message of the stark truth of the horrors of war, and that the exhibition's significance lay in not allowing the war experience to fade with time. [The show will run through May 27. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Until 6 p.m. on May 27. Entrance is free.]
|
|
