Twenty-two-year-old Keiko Mori from Japan, a schoolteacher in Okinawa, was ordered to tell her 30 students to kill themselves with hand grenades rather than surrender in June 1945.
She refused. She told her students, "Live. No matter what they say, live." She hid them in a cave for 12 days, while Japanese soldiers searched for them to force them to die for honor.
She sang to them, and taught them math with stones, when there was no food. When American soldiers found the cave, she walked out first with her hands up, holding a white shirt, to protect her students.
An American soldier almost shot her, but saw the children behind her and lowered his rifle. He gave the children chocolate. Keiko was called a traitor by some Japanese for years after the war, but her 30 students all lived. In 1975, they built a small statue of her in Okinawa, a teacher holding a white shirt, with words, "She taught us the bravest lesson — to live."
She was ordered to accept death.
Instead, one young teacher chose to fight for 30 children’s lives