One woman’s fight to remember WWII tragedies in Asia
SAN FRANCISCO — Jenny Chan, co-founder of Pacific Atrocities Education (PAE), grew up in America caught between clashing versions of history — her school textbooks skipped over the cruelties of World War II in Hong Kong, while her grandmother's stories painted a harrowing picture of life in Hong Kong under Japanese occupation. “I thought she was just probably making this up because I never learned about this,” Chan recalled, referencing tales of her family’s descent into poverty, the threat of sexual slavery and the struggle just to survive, at a conference titled "History Remembered: Understanding Atrocities in the Pacific," organized by her nonprofit organization aiming to uncover the untold stories of World War II, at San Francisco’s Presidio Officers' Club, Thursday. But she soon learned her grandmother’s memories reflected a broader, often-silenced chapter of Asian history — one in which 35 million lives were lost but rarely acknowledged in mainstream Western accounts. Driven to uncover and share these truths, Chan co-founded PAE in 2014 and has focused on recoverin
