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Row after row of monuments commemorate the people who were killed here. It's a sobering site, and I was happy to see that this and nearby war-related sites are packed with school group tours. Teaching children about the horrors of war is surely the only way to avoid a repetition.

This is Himeyuri-no-to, which seems to occupy the same holy ground as the Anne Frank house. Teachers and schoolgirls who had been mobilized as nurses for the soldiers were hiding in caves and were massacred when the U. S. military mistook them for soldiers and, horribly, flushed the hole with flame-throwers. I made a special effort to listen to the tour guide explanations to see how this was being presented, but it was mostly school groups and they seemed to be focusing on making the horrors of war real to the kids by emphasizing that it was kids just like them who were facing this hell.