From Plunder to Preservation: A Conference on Cultural Heritage,
World War II, and the Pacific
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- This Thursday and Friday,
November 8 and 9, archaeologists, historians, lawyers,
veterans, and other experts will meet at the National Trust for
Historic Preservation in Washington,
D.C. to attend the international conference, From Plunder
to Preservation: The Untold Story of Cultural Heritage,
World War II, and the Pacific.
Last year marked 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, a lifetime has passed since
the United States entered the Second World War on December 8, 1941. This anniversary revived
interest in World War II, and in particular, the Pacific Theater of
Operations. With 2012 also commemorating the Battles of the
Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal, focus on the War in the Pacific
has continued to increase this year.
"This emphasis is welcome but belated," said Tess Davis, Executive Director of the Lawyers'
Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, which is organizing
the conference. "The European Theater has long overshadowed its
counterpart in the Far East. Despite its unfathomable atrocities,
WWII in the West was the last of the so-called 'great' wars, with
its front lines, conventional combat, and massive land
campaigns. It was a familiar horror, as it had been fought
before many times, in some cases on the same battlefields, and even
by many of the same men."
The Pacific Theater — with its Kamikaze suicide
bombings, guerrilla tactics, and nuclear weapons — was
instead a harbinger of terrors to come. A take-no-prisoners
fight to the death through island jungles exotic to both the
Americans and Japanese. Like the conflicts today in Afghanistan and Iraq, and earlier in Vietnam and Korea, it was a clash between East
and West. And because it was fought between civilizations, heritage
was a major target, and thus a major casualty.
"This cultural cost of the Pacific War, like its broader toll,
has also been eclipsed by the devastation in Europe," said Davis. "We have condemned
the Nazi looting of art, mourned Monte
Cassino's loss, reconstructed old Warsaw, applauded Holocaust restitution, and
tended graves at Normandy. But what do we know of the Empire of
Japan's systematic pillaging of
Asian treasures from Mongolia to
Singapore? Or the US plan to first
destroy — and ultimately spare — historic Kyoto? The race to find, and then smuggle to
overseas collectors, downed "warbirds" in the jungles of
Papua New Guinea? The neglect
suffered by the cemeteries at Tarawa? Or the
environmental time bomb of sunken battleships, and gravesites
themselves, in pristine South Pacific?"
From Plunder to Preservation seeks to tell these stories.
The conference is organized by the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural
Heritage Preservation and sponsored by the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, Herrick, Feinstein LLP, and Saving
Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE). Continuing Legal Education (CLE)
credits will be available. To learn more and register, visit:
www.culturalheritagelaw.org/warinthepacific
Contact:
Tess Davis, Executive Director
Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP)
+1 (202) 681-3785
director@culturalheritagelaw.org
SOURCE Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation
(LCCHP)