How does it come about that this Australian country town has developed a culture of pacifism and internationalism, an Annual Festival of Understanding, and an astonishingly beautiful Japanese garden? This is the story. There was a prisoner-of-war camp here during World War II. On August 5, 1944, a thousand Japanese prisoners staged a suicidal breakout. They had knives and baseball bats as weapons, and blankets and one another to throw across the barbed wire. The Australian guards had machine guns. 231 Japanese died and 4 Australians. The Japanese were buried in a mass grave, which was tended respectfully by Australian soldiers returning after the war ended. In 1964, the Japanese government, appreciative of the care and respect shown by Cowra to their dead, moved here the remains of all Japanese fighters buried elsewhere in Australia. There are 522 graves in the Japanese War Cemetery in Cowra. Later, Ken Nakajuma was asked to design a traditional Japanese garden for the town. Japanese language is taught in the local high school, and there are student exchanges with a Japanese high school. Ken Nakajuma designed Japanese gardens all over the world; his ashes are here in Cowra.
