`HEART-WRENCHING HISTORY' : CLASS PROJECT COVERS CAPACITY FOR HATRED, WAR IN WORLD.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The way a fifth-grade teacher sees it, the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an atrocity on the same level as the Holocaust and the enslavement of African-Americans, because thousands of Japanese children and women - not just enemy soldiers - were killed.

As members of a local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter view that event in history, the nuclear weapons that wiped out two Japanese cities brought a swift end to World War II and saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers.

Whose interpretation of history is most suitable or appropriate to teach schoolchildren about man's inhumanity to man, and about the capacity for hatred and cruelty?

Thursday night was open house at Live Oak Elementary School, and the bulletin boards in Lynda Ashley's classroom revolved around the theme of ``tolerance and intolerance.'' Her students created a Wall of Remembrance that reflected their studies about ``heart-wrenching history which lacks tolerance and compassion,'' Ashley said in a letter about the class project.

``We have studied past history which lacks worldly love: slavery, the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Americans, and of course the near-annihilation of Jews and others in the Holocaust,'' Ashley's letter said.

In one incident, innocent Africans were captured and taken to the United States, where they were mistreated, forced to work and deprived of their freedoms. In another, a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii was attacked and 2,300 people were killed in an act of unprovoked aggression that propelled this country into World War II. In the other, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi forces exterminated more than 6 million Jews, plus millions of Gypsies, homosexuals and others in concentration camps.

In the fourth, bombings by American warplanes killed at least 150,000 Japanese citizens, which prompted that nation's government to surrender five days after the atomic explosion in Nagasaki.

Joe Domke, treasurer of VFW Post 6110 in Canyon Country, said he appreciated Ashley's efforts to teach her students that people should strive for harmonious coexistence. ``Peace is what we need in this world. There's too much violence,'' the Vietnam War veteran said.

But Domke added his belief that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, and can't necessarily be put in the same category as slavery and the Holocaust.

``I think about the thousands of lives we saved by doing that. It was the lesser of two evils; it stopped the war,'' Domke said.

George Meggs, an 82-year-old VFW member, is a U.S. Army veteran who fought in the European theater during World War II.

``I was totally in favor of the atomic bombs,'' Meggs said. ``I admire (President) Truman very much for making that decision, because I figure he saved millions of lives.''

Ashley said her class read a book about a Japanese girl, born in 1943, who died 10 years after the war from leukemia brought on by the radiation from the atomic bombs. The lesson was meant to show the horrors of war from a viewpoint her 10- and 11-year-old students can relate to - that of a child.

``The children have to see the outcome of war,'' she said. ``Maybe in the future, they (might) have the power to make decisions to prevent war.''

The classroom lessons, Ashley insisted, weren't meant to dishonor American military forces who marched off to battle in World War II. Her own father, the teacher noted, served in the Navy and in the Pacific theater - and many of her students' grandfathers probably are World War II veterans as well.

Kiki Helland, whose daughter Nicolet is in Ashley's class, said she had no objections to the class lessons about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and described Ashley as ``a very dedicated teacher.''

``The whole point of education is to stimulate young minds,'' Helland said

Nicolet said the theme she learned from the class discussions was that no segment of humanity corners the market on virtue or vice. ``We were bad and Japan was bad,'' she said. ``(Ashley) taught us about both sides, but she didn't give an opinion. She gave us the facts and let us make up our minds.''

Ashley said she wanted her students to learn that war kills ``not just soldiers fighting on a battlefield (but also) children who don't have a chance,'' she said.

``I always present an objective view. I don't instill my beliefs in them,'' Ashley added. ``I want my (students) to be critical thinkers.''

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Photo: (Color) Lynda Ashley puts final touches on her class's Wall of Tolerance.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News