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Japanese veteran talks abour war experiences in China

The Japan Times posting a YouTube video to accompany an article about a war veteran? I’m impressed:

“He gave us five bullets, saying four were for fighting the enemy and one was for killing ourselves,” Koyama recalled. “I had been a salaryman the week before, and the first thing I learned on the battlefield was how to commit suicide.”

One of Koyama’s most terrible experiences was being taught how to execute Chinese civilian prisoners.

One day, Koyama saw seven or eight Chinese men from a village in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, blindfolded and tied to trees. They were being punished because they would not reveal the location of the Chinese Red Army. Seasoned soldiers ordered the green recruits to execute them for not cooperating.

“I was scared to kill a man at first,” Koyama said. “I felt much guiltier killing someone with a bayonet than with a pistol from 100 meters away.”

With his comrades, he tried to pierce a man’s heart, but was unable to because the victim kept squirming to avoid being stabbed.

Koyama eventually bayoneted the man in the stomach and shoulders. After his first killing, he said he was unable to eat. But eventually he started training new recruits to also execute their prisoners, justifying his actions by arguing he had no choice because it was war.

“It was hell,” he said. “I still cannot forget their blood spraying.”

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44 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 9, 2009 at 2:26 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags:

Maxim

It’s commendable that Japanese television is showing the face of its army in a less than heroic light. The Yasukuni problem could have been over many years ago if only there wasn’t so much pride about an army that committed so many atrocities. And it’s true, Yasukuni isn’t dirty just because of the 14 class A war criminals, but because of the many soldiers who committed atrocities in Nanjing and elsewhere.

Pride and superstition has been keeping Japan from having normal relations with China, the same goes for Israel and Palestine and almost all ongoing conflicts.

LB

“It’s commendable that Japanese television is showing the face of its army in a less than heroic light. ”

They’ve been doing that for years. And so has the print media.

“The Yasukuni problem could have been over many years ago if only there wasn’t so much pride about an army that committed so many atrocities.”

There is very little “pride” in Japan about the IJA/IJN. Sure, a few hard-core right-wing nutjobs, such as the type that hang around Yasukuni, but they are a dying breed (literally).

“Pride and superstition has been keeping Japan from having normal relations with China,”

Well, that and China’s using Yasukuni and the past as either a tool to beat Japan over the head with or to distract their own populace from domestic problems (or both). There is more than enough blame for both sides plus Korea.

Maxim

When the Japanese Prime minister visits Yasukuni every year it’s not only provocative, it begs getting “beat over the head”. The gesture is seen everywhere as a deliberate insult and Japan knows it. Germany has literally repented for everything remotely connected to Hitler why can’t Japan do the same? It’s just a silly provocative gesture.

LB

Going to Yasukuni is paying respect to those Japanese soldiers who gave their lives for Japan. All of them, not just the Class A War Criminals, and not just those who died in WW2. Personally I wish Tojo and the others weren’t in there, but they are. That was a decision made by an independent religious organization. If the government forces Yasukuni to remove the war criminals, it is violating the separation of religion and State that is enshrined in the Constitution.

Freedom of religion means everyone, including the Prime Minister, gets to practice their religion as they see fit. When Koizumi paid his respects at Yasukuni and said he was doing so to pray for world peace and promise those honored at Yasukuni that Japan would never repeat the mistakes of the past that should have been accepted. It is a bit ridiculous for China to in effect be saying cabinet ministers and diet members can go, but the Prime Minister cannot. Abe and Koizumi both went before they became PM – no problem. They both went after they became PM – China and Korea bitched. What’s the difference?

A proposal for a separate, secular war memorial has been floated, but there are problems there as well. If the State were to say “offer your prayers here, not at Yasukuni” is that not also State control of religion? Would that not be in violation of Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and thought? Perhaps China does not see any problem, but those of us living in a free democracy should.
matt

Thanks LB. I now have a better perspective from your comments here.
Maxim

No, LB, it’s a travesty to hide behind “freedom of reliigion”. Religion has nothing to do with this, nationalism does. If there was a beautiful spiritual monument dedicated to Nazi soldiers and Hitler, Himmler, Goering and the rest were buried there, and Merkel was bringing flowers there every year, the Jews would be quite right to protest. Or “bitch” as you put it.
LB

But there are war cemeteries in Germany, and German chancellors as well as foreign leaders and dignitaries have paid their respects at those cemeteries. True, there are no prominent Nazi leaders in those cemeteries – the Germans and the Allies made sure of that. But still, the men buried there willingly carried out the orders of those leaders. Very few complain about paying respects to the dead, most do not nor should they.

There is an expression in Japanese: 死んだら仏 – when dead one is a Buddha. It is rooted in Japanese religious and cultural beliefs. It does not mean that death absolves one of the crimes one committed while alive, however there is no contradiction between despising those crimes and praying for the peaceful repose of the soul.
Maxim

Isn’t that kind of the whole point? That there are class-A war criminals buried there? To any sane person this would tarnish not only the shrine, but the other soldiers buried there as well.

And if there are widespread protests against German chancellors visiting a controversial grave, like there are about Yasukuni, rest assured, they will stop it immediately, not like Japanese prime ministers who do it almost to spite their neighbors.
http://Winner'sjustice Bran

If Obama paid a visit at some point to the United States Air force Academy cemetary to pay his respects to the flyers who died fighting for the US how would you take it?

Bearing in mind of course that it contains people like Curtis leMay who, had the war gone the other way, would have, perfectly justly, been classified an A-class war criminal by the Japanese and Germans.

When dealing with militaristic extremists you can’t hope to win them over by brow-beating them into submission, it only fuels their persecution complex and wins them fresh support from those on the fence. The moderates, on both sides, have to show the wisdom needed to prevent undue fixation on past grievances from hampering the resolution of current ones.

China and Japan have far more pressing security concerns and displaying a little magnamanity can go along way to helping open dialogues on more relevant problems.
Georgie Pye

“Isn’t that kind of the whole point? That there are class-A war criminals buried there?”

Well, no. They are enshrined actually. It is somewhat different. It is a process that is relatively easier than burial and shows that it is was a decision by religious authorities, and not an “action” like burial that may have been forced upon them by government. And besides which, I’m not sure it is wise to compare those who orchestrated the Holocaust to those that fought a particularly brutal war. And there is a distinction. More about this below.

“Germany has literally repented for everything remotely connected to Hitler why can’t Japan do the same?”

I’m going to repost something I did in the thread above on textbooks. Sorry.

I do wish people would stop comparing apples with pears. Germany has two sets of war memory: the first where all the Germans were responsible for the Holocaust, which they have rightly acknowledged and apologised for; and the second where Germans occupying foreign lands and fighting in battles against foreign foes are generally seen – as they sometimes are in Japan – as normal people caught up in terrible circumstances, and who, under normal circumstance would have been “against” the evil regime. This is a pretty strong thread in popular German war discourse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3usU25Z9ICE

The second “set” of war memory is that which is broadly comparable to war memory in Japan. Japan didn’t have a Holocaust; like Germany did also, it had wars and occupations. And yet, there is, if anything, more reluctance to apologise for atrocities that occurred on the front or in occupied territories in the German case than in the Japanese. When there is some sort of apology given for this type of war action, Germany seems to run into the complexities that relate, for example, to “state-versus-individual” apologies that Japan does.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/11/andrewosborn

Other parallels can be observed in the religious symbols that both nations use as recognition of their soldiers. When I lived in Germany, I noted that many of the statues in villages set up to commemorate the local fallen displayed crosses or other religious symbology, most of which, in the area where I was, belonged to a variant of Christianity whose head at the time blessed Hitler and lent him legitimacy after the war. Japan, meanwhile, has Yasukuni, which also worked to confer a sort of legitimacy on Japanese leaders. But somehow, even though most Japanese actually aren’t religious, religious observances related to the war are seen as threatening to Japan’s neighbours, while Germans get to worship the same God that helped them in their wartime battles. I guess the reason for this is that reflection of the role of the Catholic Church would cut too close to the bone for many of the Second World War’s “good guys”. (Yes, yes, I know that a big chunk of Germany isn’t catholic, but the most nationalist parts were, and today the most conservative parts still are.)

http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Volkstrauertag018.JPG&filetimestamp=20061119170521

To bring things back to the textbook, as a product of both the German and the Japanese education systems, I can only remember German textbooks talking about how evil the Holocaust and the Nazi government was. I don’t remember any long soliloquy on Germany’s conduct in its occupied territories, whereas most Japanese textbooks go into events like Japan’s occupation of Manchuria and the Nanjing incident at length. Even the previous edition of the book we are talking about here – which I currently have on my desk – has a whole section on Japan’s war in China and mentions that the Japanese army killed many people in Nanjing and that this it is a controversial issue.

So Germany gets off the hook when it comes to apologies for atrocities committed during the occupation because it had the Holocaust and that overshadows everything else. Japan has to kow-tow eternally because its government didn’t slaughter its internal minorities.
Maxim

Georgie Pye, it’s a shame that out of respect for present-day Japan people stoop so low as to defend the atrocities of Imperial Japan. So Japan’s atrocities in China can’t be compared to the Holocaust you say? The fact that China lost 16 million civilians, more than any other country in WW2 shouldn’t count? That’s 16 million non-combatant civilians. Does the life of a Jew killed in a gas chamber somehow cost more than 3 Chinese disemboweled in their back yard? Is the sick way in which Jews were killed somehow sicker than the way Chinese civilians were killed? What about all the women that were raped, what’s their exchange rate? How is China and Korea’s outrage at Yasukuni “bitching” (as one person put it) and the Jewish outrage at anti-Semitism not? The hypocrisy is staggering.

And since when did honoring an “enshrined” war criminal become less awful than honoring a “buried” war criminal?
ponta

, it’s a shame that out of respect for present-day Japan people stoop so low as to defend the atrocities of Imperial Japan.

I think Japanese public acknowledges atrocities Imperial Japan committed.
It is some statements of a few Japanese ultra-nationalists that are being used and abused by Chinese and Korean nationalists to fuel their nationalism.
Just as you can’t sweep neo-Nazi in German, you can’t sweep all the ultra-nationalists in Japan. I regret some Japanese ultra-nationalists make such statements.
But some, or many Japanese are getting sick and tired of seeing Chinese and Korean nationalists twisting the fact that Japan acknowledged that she was wrong and was to blame (and that is why she apoloigized many times)
(look at the link i gave, for instance).
The atrocities in China and other Asian countries by Japanese Imperial military were horrible. Also I should mention the mistreatment’s of POW as in Bataan Death March.
I am really sorry.
Let’s non-nationalists of each nation face the past injustice of their own nations and other nations equally so that we can learn from the past and work together for the future.

If you are interested in the death toll by the dictator,governement etc, the following links might help.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB1.4.GIF
LB

“The fact that China lost 16 million civilians, more than any other country in WW2 shouldn’t count?”
And that, my friends, is BS. China lost, by most well-researched estimates, about 10.5 million total, military and civilian combined. The majority due to secondary results of the war, such as famine. Naturally Japan bears responsibility for all deaths caused by its invasion of China, but let’s not exaggerate.

Russia lost about 20 million people, out of a much smaller population than China. If anyone gets “bragging rights” for having the largest number and percentage of its population killed, it would be the Russians.

“Is the sick way in which Jews were killed somehow sicker than the way Chinese civilians were killed?”
Actually, yes. The Jews were systematically searched out, rounded out, transported to facilities especially built for killing them, on specially-built rail lines. It was the industrialization of death, a carefully planned and executed attempt to exterminate an entire people. Japan, for all her faults, did not do that. Japan, like Nazi Germany and the Russians, engaged in horrific assaults on civilian populations in combat zones. Japan did, again like Nazi Germany, engage in medical experimentation on prisoners or work them to death or sometimes just outright execute them. Japan, like Germany, has apologized, paid reparations and continues to face up to its past.

I suspect part of the continuing problem as concerns Japan’s neighbors comes down to a very different set of circumstances from Germany post-war. Germany is one country in a group called “Europe”. There is and has been for centuries, especially on the Continent, a sense of “European identity” – shared cultural traits, religion, etc. This never existed in Asia. There is no indigenous word, in any Asian language, for “Asia”. None.

Also, it is a bit hard for the French, Italians, Swiss, Danes or much of anyone else to get too self-righteous when pointing the finger at the Germans for, say, killing the Jews. Very hard to do that when your own country was often, in some way, assisting. Assisting at gunpoint perhaps, yes, but there were a lot of people who were not too unwilling.

And finally, post-war Europe was facing the Red Threat. Folks were a bit more prone to “let Germany back into the fold”, and even let former Wehrmacht soldiers and Luftwaffe pilots into positions of authority within NATO as long as they were all facing the same perceived threat. That threat never materialized in the same way in Asia, so there was no need to “rehabilitate” Japan.
Georgie Pye

By the way, I was NOT justifying the atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Army. I was merely pointing out that the WAR and the HOLOCAUST were two different things. If you want to criticise Japan for a systematised massacre of minorities within their own borders – even within their own colonies, then please show me that they have undertaken one. You’ve already shown me that you don’t care about atrocities when they are committed against Soviet soldiers (by talking about the “20 million killed” in China because of Japanese actions without mentioning the greater number of Soviets killed in war because of German action while you maintain that Germans have managed to apologise). Sure, the Japanese killed many in their brutal occupation. And many – MANY – of those kills constituted war crimes. But they have apologised for the war. The Germans have, mostly, apologised for the Holocaust. There is a difference.
Georgie Pye

The point, in case you haven’t grasped it yet, is that the Germans haven’t apologised for the war – at least not to the degree that the Japanese have. The Germans have apologised, but for something else. As I said, apples and pears.

Colonel Stink

Note to self: run away from wars.
klimmer

Every country has a right and should pay their respect to those who gave their lives for their country. The Yasukuni shrine is not exempt. It attracts a lot of attention primarily because Japan refuses to officially acknowledge their atrocities during the 2nd World War, and refuses to be officially transparent about it.

LB

Not quite – the government of Japan does officially acknowledge the atrocities committed, the government just does not officially acknowledge the Chinese or Korean version of events. Nor should it, as the claims are often grotesquely inflated or presented in such a way as to completely absolve one side of any blame. Nanjing would be an example – lots of talk about the killings of Chinese, but the fact that the Chinese army bears some of the blame for leaving a fairly large number of troops inside the city after “evacuating”, and for telling those troops to bury their uniforms and wage guerrilla war. Unfortunately the Japanese army learned of the plot and set about routing out the enemy in their midst. In an extremely harsh and heavy-handed way, granted. I am in no way trying to absolve the IJA of guilt for killing civilians, but not all of those “civilians” really were.

PL

Your argument for allocating blame to the Chinese army is ludicrous. Do you blame the resistance fighters in Europe for the mass slaughter of entire towns by the Nazis in retaliation for their active resistance? Even if claims of atrocities are overstated, do you seriously believe that every case of misbehavior will ever be revealed to the world? How many had to die for there to be muted acceptance on the part of Japan?

Every year, public officials or military officers publicly justify or downplay Japan’s actions in WW2. Is it any wonder that China and Korea remain indignant?

Japan should study Germany’s uncondtional acceptance of responsibility for its conduct in WW2. Defiance and denial in the face of massive ill conduct is indefensible.

LB

You weren’t paying attention to what I said. Mass slaughter of civilians is not acceptable. However, when an army is confronted with an armed insurgency in a city, or the prospect of same, civilians are going to get killed. I would not blame the French Resistance for those instances where the Germans rolled into a town, rounded up every man, woman and child and executed them before leveling the whole town. However, if the Germans were in a town that had supposedly surrendered and the French Resistance either attacked using public buildings and homes as bases, or the Germans had solid information that they were there and acted to take them out before an attack then yes, the French Resistance would bear responsibility. Or at the very least, the French would not be able to complain “You blew up our town”, anymore than Iraqis in Fallujah can complain about the US blowing up mosques with JDAMs. If they didn’t want the mosque bombed, they shouldn’t have been sniping from the minarets or using the buildings as a headquarters/armory. The Laws of Land Warfare support that.

“Every year, public officials or military officers publicly justify or downplay Japan’s actions in WW2. ”
Yes, and they often get fired or pressured to quit, but somehow that gets overlooked. And why are they pushed aside? Well, see, there’s this little thing called “The Government’s Position on the War and Japanese Responsibility”. Run afoul of that and you have a short career as a cabinet minister or military official.

Still, as distasteful as some of those individual’s opinions may be, Japan has this little thing called “freedom of speech”. While I may not like what Tamogami says as a private individual, I would like it far less if Japan became like, say, China and started throwing people into prison for things they say. Japan used to be like that, and it was a problem, and our grandfathers settled it. Unfortunately, some people never got the memo about that.
Dr.Yu

I think the problem here is just “Perspective”. But whose perspective is right?

Under the aggressors side’s perspective killing all those civilians is justified because there were soldiers among the civilians, but under the victims side’s perspective aggressors are wrong because they were just defending from the aggressors. Here the aggressor is Japan.

In another situation: USA dropped nukes at Japan to finish the war quickly and avoid more casualties from both sides, however, although almost defeated, Japan resisted at al cost when was nuked by USA and suffered thousands of civilians casualties. Here the victim is Japan.

In the first case Japan defends the aggressor’s perspective, justifying the mass murder of thousands of civilians, but in the second case defends the victim’s perspective condemning the mass murder of civilians. So again, whose perspective is right?

In my opinion killing people is wrong regardless of perspective.
PL

“However, when an army is confronted with an armed insurgency in a city, or the prospect of same, civilians are going to get killed.”

You are referring to collateral damage. Nanking was more than collateral damage. Here is a quote from a BBC article “http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/223038.stm”:

They admit that deaths and rapes did occur, but say they were on a much smaller scale than reported. And in any case, they argue, these things happen in times of war.

Diminishing the scale of atrocities. How many people have to have been killed and raped for it to be more than merely something that happens in war?
nigelboy

“Diminishing the scale of atrocities. How many people have to have been killed and raped for it to be more than merely something that happens in war?”

Happened in Iraq by U.S. forces. Now. Do you expect these incidents to be on the U.S. textbooks? Do you expect an official apology from the U.S. presidents from now on?

Lot of serious $hit happened after WWII but go to any nations textbooks regarding their involvement and it’s just a footnote or it’s not mentioned at all.

And as somebody already stated, this is why historians debate the numbers to put a perspective on things. Also you debate the situation for both sides to get a full picture of these incidents.

As LB stated, the situation in Nanking got nasty because one of the primary reason was that there were Chinese soldiers disguising as soldiers within the civilian population. This is against the Hague at that time and is still illegal and more expansive because of the severe damages it causes to the civilian population.
PL

The scale of American transgressions in Iraq pale in comparison to what happened in Nanking. At least there is a system of military justice within the US armed forces to deal with crimes against civilians. The US government has already expressed some degree of regret over the abuses in Abu Ghraib and there is ample documentation of what happened in the media including several documentaries. There is a lasting public record. The atrocities committed in Nanking obviously occurred with the knowledge and encouragement of the command structure who did nothing to stop prevent it or stop it or prosecute it. When the US invaded Iraq there were many Iraqi soldiers who ditched their uniforms and blended in with the general population and actively participated in the insurgency. Did the US round up the citizenry and butcher them en masse? The mindset that allows us to merely dismiss atrocities is a slippery moral slope no matter who committed it. The deaths of over 20 million Russians did not justify the wanton looting, murder and raping that occurred when the Red Army overran Berlin.
ponta

Herbert P. Bix takes a different view.

n short, Nanking 1937 needs to be read in a way that highlights the universal within the particular. Set it against the background of the Russian rape of German women in postwar occupied Germany (1945-49), or the French torture of civilians during the Algerian War (1954-62) or the American atrocities at No Gun Ri hamlet early in the Korean War (1950-53). Compare the logic of Japan’s campaign in 1930s China with the American colonial war of aggression in Iraq, now generating war atrocities on a virtually daily basis, or with the American murder of Afghanis prisoners at the U.S. Baghran air base in Afghanistan, or the American mistreatment of war prisoners held in cages at the U.S. Guantanamo base in Cuba. And don’t forget the lessons of the atrocities in Nanking when reading of the atrocious policies that Israeli governments (past but especially present) pursue against the Palestinians for the sake of Israeli “settlements” and “outposts” built illegally on stolen land.
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Herbert_P_-Bix/2072
nigelboy

“The scale of American transgressions in Iraq pale in comparison to what happened in Nanking. ”

Now it’s “transgressions”? What happened to “atrocities” or the word “massacre”? Are those words only reserved for Japan?

“At least there is a system of military justice within the US armed forces to deal with crimes against civilians”

And this makes it OK somehow?

“When the US invaded Iraq there were many Iraqi soldiers who ditched their uniforms and blended in with the general population and actively participated in the insurgency. Did the US round up the citizenry and butcher them en masse?”

God knows what the U.S. is doing there in Iraq but here’s a take from an article a few years back.

“….And what of the idea that most of the violent deaths in Iraq are caused by coalition troops? Well according to the Houston Chronicle, even Blair’s favourite data source, the Iraqi health ministry, reports that twice as many Iraqis – and most of them civilians – are being killed by US and UK forces as by insurgents. When the Pentagon claims that it has just killed 50 or 70 or 100 rebel fighters, we have no means of knowing who those people really were. Everyone it blows to pieces becomes a terrorist. In July Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the US army, claimed that coalition troops had killed or captured more than 50,000 “insurgents” since the start of the rebellion. Perhaps they were all Zarqawi’s closest lieutenants…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/nov/08/media.pressandpublishing

What’s next PL? Are you going to “diminish” the scale of atrocity done by U.S. because unlike Nanking where the incident took only three months or so, this current occupation is going on since 2003?

Well shoot. I can give you the “shortest” massacre of all time which isn’t even Hiroshima or Nagasaki. And on top of that, it’s not even mentioned in the textbooks in U.S.
Georgie Pye

“In the first case Japan defends the aggressor’s perspective, justifying the mass murder of thousands of civilians, but in the second case defends the victim’s perspective condemning the mass murder of civilians. So again, whose perspective is right?”

Well, that would be a perfectly reasonable position to take except that it is not “Japan” that sees the Hiroshima sufferers as victims or deny aggression in Nanjing, it is groups of individual Japanese. The “left (in terms of war memory)” – that is the majority – tends to emphasise Hiroshima, while the “right” tends to play down atrocities in Nanjing and view the “left” with something like contempt. There is no “Japanese” interpretation of the war, unless you take the Japanese government’s interpretation, which is generally apologetic on all fronts now – in other words, it is the position that you advocate.
ponta

I think the majority take the simple view that war is evil no matter where it happened.
Yes, Japanese government is apologetic in a sense that they expressed apologies several times.
It might be said that it should take a stronger position towards war victims such as helping ex-sex slave whosever victims they are or holding jurisdiction over the war criminals whichever war they are involved.

But we also need to take a look at this issue in view of nationalism,
For instance,
Japanese ultra-nationalists tend to downplay the war crimes Japan committed.
Korean ultra-nationalists tend to downplay the crimes that Korea committed. Sadly, for instance, they are determined to deny helping ex-sex slaves Korean and American military exploited while complaining that Japanese apologies and compensations to them are not sufficient enough.
Many Germans are left ignorant of sex-slaves by Nazis.NPD and ultra nationalists call destruction in Dresden a “Holocaust,”at the Dresden anniversary.
Chinese nationalists are determined to use Nanjing as a tool to bash Japan, intentionally focusing upon a few so called deniers, despite the fact Japanese government acknowledges that Japan was to blame while justifying the invasion and massacre of Tibet and Tibetans.
And so on.
Nationalism is biased. It pumps up victim-hood while turning blind eye to and/or justifying the injustices their nation committed.
That is why we should, to borrow Bix’s words, “highlight the universal within the particular” so that we won’t fall to nationalism. It is not that two wrongs makes right but that we should hold the same gaze at the two wrongs.

Mister M

We shold think about our future, and just that.

http://witzl.blogspot.com/ MaryWitzl

We should certainly think about our future, but one of the ways we can do that is by examining the past. In America, it is important that we acknowledge the barbarity of slavery, the cruel, often duplicitous treatment of Native Americans, etc. In Germany, children study about the Holocaust in school; places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald are preserved as important, if tragic, historic venues. Japanese children should learn about Japan’s opportunistic Greater Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, about Unit 731, comfort women, and other atrocities of the war. Teaching our children that even the country they live in may have been capable of crimes against humanity is not the same as wallowing in our past sins and collective guilt; it is a way to educate them about the horrors of war.

Eddie

“In America, it is important that we acknowledge the barbarity of slavery, the cruel, often duplicitous treatment of Native Americans, etc”

That “etc” should be in huge font. HUGE.
ponta

We should certainly think about our future, but one of the ways we can do that is by examining the past.

I agree.
Does Japan deny for instance that Nanjing massacre took place.
No, it does acknowledge that it took place and Japan was to blame.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/MOFAJ/area/taisen/qa/08.html
And Japan offered apologies and compensations to the former sex slaves —though there is a controversy whether they were enough and appropriate while in German

Hardly any of the women, who suffered severe physical and mental damage as a result of their experiences, applied after 1945 for compensation for their suffering because they felt talking about their experiences was too degrading, Eschebach said. “Sex slavery was not identified as such in the judicial cases dealing with the SS crimes,” she added.
01/15/2007 NAZI SEX SLAVES spiegel.

Did American government offered apologies and compensations to the former comfort women?

Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=korea=cse

(Ex-prostitutes are euphemism for sex slaves just as comfort women are)

Are there any movements since Susan Brownmiller in her book”against our will”r deplored the “insitutional prositution” and said that U.S. military-controlled and -regulated brothels ?

Are there controversies over historical facts?
Yes.
Here is a recent news about Columbus.

Brown University: Columbus Day Renamed, Happy Fall Weekend at Brown U.
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=3697

And　here is an older one regarding controversial books.
http://web.aall.ufl.edu/SJS/Yamamoto.pdf

Do history textbook contain glorification of the country?
Probably yes.
Japanese history textbook controversies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

Do kids learn as much as mature adults want them to learn.
Perhaps not.

It is important to lean from the past but let’s take look at it as universal issue so that it won’t be abused politically.

http://witzl.blogspot.com/ MaryWitzl

I give The Japan Times a lot of credit for putting this on YouTube too. You could write an article about war atrocities and publish it in any number of books, but in order to reach today’s youth, YouTube is by far the most effective. Good for them.
Dr.Yu

Wars are nightmares for both the winner and the loser because they lose thousands of precious life. A time for reflection is a good start to prevent future wars.
kingTX

” it was war i had no choice”

the difference is japanese were the invaders china were the victim
Japanese declared a war,the war starter.theres no excuse
stereo

There is no Chinese word that means “to forgive”.
Their blame will continue forever, no matter what Japan does.
Japan should just ignore it.

LB

“There is no Chinese word that means “to forgive”.”

Wrong, but 我原谅您 (Wo yuanliang nin).

Stereo

Yuanliang means “to permit” or “to grant”. Permitting is quite different from forgiving. Permission is a special treatment given to good people, whereas forgiveness is reconciliation given to sinners. You can forgive a crime but you cannot permit a crime, can you? Since Chinese culture lacks the idea of forgiving, and since Chinese cannot “permit” wrongdoing, they will forever blame Japan.

Georgie Pye

“Since Chinese culture lacks the idea of forgiving, and since Chinese cannot “permit” wrongdoing, they will forever blame Japan.”

Oh balls.

English doesn’t have a word for the back of the knee. German does. In fact, it has its own German Wikipedia entry:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kniekehle

That does not mean that English speakers either do not have or cannot conceive of the “kniekehle.”

By your logic, every Chinese person would harbour a grudge towards everybody who did everything to them ever. Are you stupid? Do some reading.

http://www.durf.org/2009/04/07/link-of-the-day/
LB

No, “Yunxu” 允许 means to permit or grant. Yuanliang means to excuse, pardon or forgive. I can assure you, the Chinese culture does indeed include the concept of forgiveness. Or are you extolling some kind of 中国人論？
Stereo

Georgie Pye, it seems you just cannot respect other cultures and just assume every culture is the same. It is ironic that those people tend to say they respect diversity whereas they do not believe any difference in culture.

LB, the closest word to “forgiving” in Chinese may be “shezui” which means to relieve punishment. I think there is difference between forgiving and relieving punishment, but what do you think?

Former US soldiers may play baseball with former Japanese soldiers today. I do not think the same will happen between former Chinese and Japanese soldiers.

hoihoi

WAR DAMAGE IN THE NANKING AREA
December, 1937 to March, 1938

http://www.history.gr.jp/~nanking/LSCSmythe.pdf
Georgie Pye

Yeah man, what LB said (except for the bit about the French, Italians, Swiss and Danes.

und bisdem du ja schon ein bisschen deutsche Geschichte gelernt hast oder, ja, danach Japanische, kannst du mich ins Arsch ficken, netter Kerl.

What happened in China was not a Holocaust, it was war. War sucks and the Japanese government has apologised for the universal fact that war sucks and the particular fact that their one sucked in particular. What is your proof that they don’t mean it? Is it because some of their politicians refuse to acknowledge history? Come on, man, while there may be individual politicians who every now and then cast aspertions on the MAINSTREAM constrition in Japanese society for the war, I don’t think there have been any members that have split away from the LDP specifically to join a party that does things like agitate against war memory. This has happened in Germany – yes to much outrage, but similar outrage as would happen in Japan.

http://www.rep.de/content.aspx?ArticleID=d9a9921e-d293-48ee-ba5b-d84706d58625
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Republikaner#Bundestag

Look, baby, I know me some Japanese and German politics and history. Just about every example of war related thought crime you can mention in Japan, I can show you an equivalent in Germany. So please don’t lecture me about the goodness of the Germans vis-a-vis the Japanese, because I will hand you your ass.
http://www.ishigaki-japan.com Ishigaki

I live in Japan and I’m always shocked at how little is known about Japan’s wartime past by its citizens. Most of them have no idea of what happened in Nanjing etc.

I live in Japan and I love Japan but the Japanese have to face up to their wartime history in the same manner in which the Germans have.

Japanese veteran talks abour war experiences in China

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