Japan is paying tribute to more than 3 million war dead as the country marks its surrender 80 years ago, ending World War II, as concern grows about the rapidly fading memories of the tragedy of war and the bitter lessons from the era of Japanese militarism.

In a national ceremony Friday at Tokyo’s Budokan hall, about 4,500 officials and bereaved families and their descendants from around the country will observe a moment of silence at noon, the time when the then-emperor’s surrender speech began on Aug. 15, 1945.

Just a block away at Yasukuni Shrine, seen by Asian neighbors as a symbol of militarism, dozens of Japanese politicians and their supporters came to pray.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba stayed away from Yasukuni and sent a religious ornament as a personal gesture instead of praying at the controversial shrine.

But Shinjiro Koizumi, the agriculture minister considered as a top candidate to replace the beleaguered prime minister, prayed at the shrine. Koizumi, the son of popular former Prime Minitser Junichiro Koizumi whose Yasukuni visit as a serving leader in 2001 outraged China, is a regular at the shrine.

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