Will Japan ever have courage to own up to its past?

Since China will hold activities, including a parade, on Sept 3 to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory in the war against fascism, I went on a one-day tour of Berlin on Saturday to see what World War II means to the German people and returned with respect for the city for facing its past with honesty.

The first proof of Berlin's honesty for me was the Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten. Built in 1945, the memorial, shaped like a curved stoa topped by a statue of a Soviet soldier, is today surrounded by woodlands. The memorial, following the division of Berlin after World War II, was in the British sector, but still the Germans honored the tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives fighting the Nazis in the Battle of Berlin as their country's "heroes." This profound courage, honesty and respect for history have been shown by German politicians, too.

Europe observes V-Day on May 8. Two days before the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, German President Joachim Gauck laid a wreath at a cemetery in Holte-Stukenbrock, northern Germany, where Soviet soldiers are buried, saying it is important to remember one of the worst crimes of war. Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel skipped the Red Square parade on Russia's V-Day amid Western boycott, she attended a wreath-laying ceremony in Moscow to commemorate the Soviet soldiers and civilians killed during WWII. And while on a visit to Japan in March, she said Germans are not in a position to advise anyone, but they can deal with history squarely.