The city of Coventry in the English Midlands has had a long and honourable tradition in peace building, since its 14th century cathedral was destroyed in 1940.
The city's International Centre for Reconciliation helped broker the Kaduna Peace Declaration of Religious Leaders, and the First Alexandria Declaration of the Religious Leaders of the Holy Land.
In October last year the city of Coventry inaugurated a Peace Month and a Hiroshima Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Exhibition, which was officially opened by the Japanese Ambassador to the UK, Masaki Orita. On the invitation of the Lord Mayor, Sucha Singh Bains, a local survivor of Japanese prison camps, Les Dennison, was invited to participate in the inauguration.
Dennison was captured at the fall of Singapore in 1942 and was among only 400 survivors out the 1,600 prisoners who were forced to work on the Burma Railway and one of the bridges over the River Kwai. He weighed just 5st 4lbs when he returned home.
After Ambassador Orita had unveiled a plaque, the official party moved to the ruins of the cathedral for an opening ceremony attended by the public. Dennison, together with Yoshiro Yamawaki, who had survived the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World War II, lit candles at the ceremony which was filmed by British and Japanese television companies.
The Coventry Citizen described how Dennison had attended a conference in Switzerland in 1962 where he unexpectedly encountered a Japanese delegation. A Japanese general told him: 'I know what happened and I don't ever expect you to forget what happened.' Bowing low, he added: 'I beg you to forgive me and my nation.'
Dennison told the paper, 'He was genuine and that was the beginning of a remarkable change in my attitude.' The paper writes, 'Despite the horrific treatment of Les and his comrades, he is keen to leave the animosity of war where it belongs - in the past. "For a long time I felt bitterness and hatred but I don't want that to be passed on to the second generation," he explained.'
Ambassador Orita wrote to Dennison, 'It is through the efforts of brave people like you that British and Japanese people are able to grow closer together in the spirit of peace and friendship, without forgetting the past.'
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