Since visiting the Japanese War Cemetery at Cowra, which contains the graves of all Japanese POWs who died in Australia during the Second World War, I have pondered deeply on the human capacity for reconciliation, writes Congregational Leader Sister Catherine McCahill.
The rural town of Cowra, with a population of about 8000, lies some 300 kilometres west of my current hometown, Sydney. Many Australians know of the ’Cowra Breakout’ during the Second World War that rocked our nation when hundreds of Japanese prisoners broke out of the under-guarded Prisoner of War and Internees Camp in 1944. A visit had long been on my ‘bucket list’.
Finally, when the opportunity came, there were many surprises. I stood in silence at the POW camp site. Steel sheets graphically depict those impacted by the breakout: an Australian guard, a Japanese POW, an Italian POW and an Indonesian mother and child.
I wandered with joy and gratitude around the Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre. Having visited numerous gardens in Japan, I was impressed by the size, the beauty and quality of this garden. I marvelled at the reconciliation expressed in its plants, water features and traditional Japanese structures.
While my memory of these sites remains vivid and uplifting, it pales beside my experience at the Cowra War Cemetery, a Commonwealth War Graves Commission site where 27 Australian Second World War veterans are buried with typical commission headstones. I remembered them and their sacrifice.
The Cowra Japanese War Cemetery is nearby. At first glance there is nothing unusual – the site is typically Japanese and well-kept. Then I read the information panel at the entrance. In part it reads:
Japanese who died prior to the Breakout were originally buried in marked graves in this general location but after the Breakout in 1944 the graves were consolidated into a distinct area. After the war, members of the local RSL cared for the Japanese graves as well as the Allied graves. In 1963, the Japanese Government submitted a proposal to the Australian Government for a Japanese War Cemetery, which was agreed. All other Japanese who died during the war, civilians and military alike, including Japanese Airmen either shot down or crashed over northern Australia, had their remains brought to Cowra. Other Japanese remains for the Second World War have been interred here since then. (Italics – mine)
That sentence marked in italics holds a treasured place in my memory. The local RSL (Returned Services League) cared for the Japanese graves. This means that in just a few short years after the end of the war, especially the war in the Pacific, the women and men most impacted by that war, wounded in body and spirit, were tending the graves of the so-called ‘enemy’.
How did they learn to be neighbours again after the experience of war?
The local RSL maintains that the Japanese government was so impressed by this act of charity that they decided to move all Japanese POWs buried in other parts of Australia during the war to Cowra. For its part, the Australian government ceded the land to Japan in 1963.
In the past week, we have acknowledged the end of the Second World War. I was able to attend a gathering of Japanese and Australian people to pray for peace on 9 August, the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. We watched some of the live-stream from the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, also called the Urakami Cathedral, in Nagasaki.
The Japanese War Memorial at Cowra. Image: Sister Catherine McCahill SGS.
Since visiting Cowra some years ago and in recent weeks, I have thought often of that cemetery, of the RSL personnel and their generous spirit. I have pondered deeply on the human capacity for reconciliation.
I cannot claim any expertise on this matter. However, it seems to me that what those RSL members did was to act with charity and decency, probably before they could find real reconciliation in their hearts. Many will never forget the atrocities of war, but they have not allowed the hurt and pain to prevent their neighbourly actions.
Today, our global community again experiences the atrocities of war. The loss of life, wounding and devastation in the Gaza strip (Palestine), Ukraine, Sudan and other places are immense. The physical and psychological wounds are many and deep. I wonder about the outcome. When the guns are silenced, how will these people be? Who will support them? How will they be neighbour to those on the other side and nearby? Will we who are further away support neighbourliness or division?
Many of us carry wounds of disappointment, hurt or abuse. In some cases, we need expert help so that the load is bearable. In others, it can be easy to slip into an alliance with the negativity, to refuse encounter with the ‘other’.
As I ponder the lesson of the Japanese War Cemetery in Cowra, I come back to my own tradition of the Rule of St Benedict. “Seek peace and pursue it,” Benedict writes, amplifying the message of Psalm 34 and 1 Peter 3:11. He goes further in providing the ‘tools’ for his monks to live peacefully in community: Do not give a false peace; Do not abandon charity.
I am reminded that when it is tough to forgive and when I cannot forget, I can choose to act for the good of the other. I can pray for her. I can intentionally and sincerely choose kindness over contempt or isolation. When I make this choice, sometimes I have found that forgiveness and love find a place in my heart.
Those RSL veterans of Cowra in the 1950s and 1960s challenge me again and again to act with decency and neighbourliness even when there are divisions or disruptions that separate us.
This article was published in the August 2025 edition of The Good Oil.
