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It became a shock to me that most westerners don't seem to know much about WWII history in Asia, as their textbook is almost exclusively focused on Nazi Germany.
I use to tell my Canadian colleague how the Japanese committed atrocious crimes in the 1930s in East and Southeast Asia, including mass murdering, rape, human experiment etc. etc., and she was astonished and told me she knew nothing about that. And yesterday I talked about a similar topic with a French student, and he apparently knew very little too. This made me think.
The Holocaust caused between 6 to 10 million death among Jewish people, on the other hand, the massacre the Japanese army committed in Asia was not any less., I am not talking about Nanking, where 300,000 were killed, that's just one of the most famous example, and I am not talking about the "Comfort women", those are just a very small part compared with the scale of the heinous crimes Japan committed in Asia.
I quote from wikipedia
Arriving at a probable number of Japan’s war victims who died is difficult for several interesting reasons, which have to do with Western perceptions. ... Wholly aside from this basic misconception, most Americans think of WW2 in Asia as having begun with Pearl Harbor, the British with the fall of Singapore, and so forth. The Chinese would correct this by identifying the Marco Polo Bridge incident as the start, or the Japanese seizure of Manchuria earlier. It really began in 1895 with Japan’s assassination of Korea’s Queen Min, and invasion of Korea, resulting in its absorption into Japan, followed quickly by Japan’s seizure of southern Manchuria, etc. – establishing that Japan was at war from 1895–1945. Prior to 1895, Japan had only briefly invaded Korea during the Shogunate, long before the Meiji Restoration, and the invasion failed. Therefore, Rummel’s estimate of 6-million to 10-million dead between 1937 (the Rape of Nanjing) and 1945, may be roughly corollary to the time-frame of the Nazi Holocaust, but it falls far short of the actual numbers killed by the Japanese war machine. If you add, say, 2-million Koreans, 2-million Manchurians, Chinese, Russians, many East European Jews (both Sephardic and Ashkenazi), and others killed by Japan between 1895 and 1937 (conservative figures), the total of Japanese victims is more like 10-million to 14-million. Of these, I would suggest that between 6-million and 8-million were ethnic Chinese, regardless of where they were resident.
I am not here to accuse the Japanese government or express a nationalist sentiment. I was always against this stupid "boycott Japanese product" drama. I am just wondering why Europeans and North Americans choose to ignore the war crimes in their textbooks to such an extent, to the point that many, if not most don't know the sheer scale and severity of the crime is not any less than what Nazi did in Europe.
Of course what happened in Europe means more to Europeans, I get that, however, every person in Asia know the Holocaust and how millions of Jews were persecuted and murdered, because it is clearly written on every textbook. However, what happens in Asia becomes an insignificant episode for westerners, as if lives of Jews are worth so much more than lives of Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and I think that's shameful.
In 2012, A Toronto councilor tried to proclaim the 75th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre, City Hall declined based on the argument that this is "controversial" -- honestly, what is "controversial" about this? Who dare claim the issue of Holocaust is "controversial" nowadays? A counciller and HISTORIAN said "[The massacre] is something that happened purely in an Asian context between two Asian societies,” -- well, we can also say the Holocaust is something that happened in a European context between a bunch of European societies, can't we?
Fact check: there are about 385,000 Jews in Canada today, compared with 1,487,000 Chinese. So to claim what happens in Asia is less relevant is nonsense.
I can't speak for anybody else, but what the Japanese did in China, the Philippines, SE Asia, etc was no secret at school or during my upbringing. Perhaps it doesn't fit the modern liberal narrative that the nuking of Japan was unwarranted, so they pretend that the Japanese were not liquidating the Chinese at a hideous pace. It's a lot easier to claim that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acts of evil if we exclude the atrocities that the Japanese were committing.
As an American student up through the 70s the high schools never got to WWII during history classes. They always ran out of instructional time. What we learned came from the documentaries and docudramas of the survivors and their rescuers. Except for a few Japanese POW compounds liberated before the surrender I can remember no stories of the American island hopping armies or the British Army in Burma liberating survivors and camps as was done in Europe finding Nazi death, labor and concentration camps. About the only time civilians came up was in Manila being a battleground and Japanese civilians committing mass suicide.
Another reason is because we see interactions with a filter of racial bigotry and the Japanese running through Asia did not click over that filter while Jews being treating as a quasi race like Latinos are now did trip that filter
Yeah, you are lucky to find today's young even aware of WW2. It's ancient history to them while they dwell on Lady Gaga and facebook.
But yeah, the reasons that the atrocities committed by Japan was not as well known was mainly due to cold war factors, and maybe issues of race as was detailed above (who cares about millions of murdered Chinese), but now ironically it's out of political correctness, liberal thinking, and historical revision - "oh the poor Japanese that perished in the evil atomic bombing!" Yeah, it's hard to fathom, but the US is now labeled the evil protagonist in the Pacific theater. It's the new liberal narrative. Gone is the knowledge of millions of Asian civilians murdered by the Japanese Imperial Army. Japanese murdered more Chinese in Nanking by bullet and bayonet, literally by hand, then were killed in both Atomic bombings, but it still remains relatevily unknown. Nazi killing factories were not needed, Japan unleashed hundreds of thousands of psychotic "Ted Bundy's" masquerading as soldiers in asia.
And of course, you have an element of Japanese society still that will not even admit these war crimes were committed. It's slowly changing, but for many years Japanese school textbooks entirely skipped over these. Contrast that with Germany who went through it's own national shame over the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
To those that want an introduction to the atrocities committed in the Pacific Theater (which includes the Sino-Japanese war phase even prior to the Nazi start of hostilities in 1939) - start with Iris Chang's "Rape of Nanking".
Another major factor here is Jewish influence in the West. They make sure the Holocaust is emphasized in Western curriculum while the full extent of Japan's activities during WWII is not, or is quickly glossed over.
Most Asians know next to nothing about what Germany did during the WWII either. The textbooks end with they killed the Jews and nothing beyond. The massacre of the Romas, the Slavs, the Lebesraum etc. are barely mentioned. The reality is that primary and secondary education provides very little detail to history and you'd have to do your own research if you're really interested.
Germany (and maybe Austria as well) is probably the only country in the world that actually faces history. Most other countries are just not really bothered.
Last edited by Greysholic; 12-14-2016 at 11:49 AM..
I can't comment on Canada or France's public education, but we learned about Japanese aggression and atrocities in WW2 in the schools I went to, on American military bases, and then later in the Seattle and Boston areas. America was the primary driving force in destroying the Imperial Japanese military; its aggression was the reason the US got involved in WW2; many American soldiers died fighting the Japanese island to island... so, because of this, we learned at least some of the background that led to Pearl Harbor. Additionally, the US was inundated with heavy anti-Japanese propaganda during WW2, so large swaths of Americans were aware of Japanese atrocities as they were still happening. Knowledge of this stuck in the American psyche to some extent or another.
For France's part, some of that could simply be because the European theater of WW2 took place, partially, in France and was traumatic enough in its own right for the French people. It had almost nothing to do with the Japanese during WW2. Canada was heavily involved in the European theater, but had very little to do with the Pacific theater, and so they also have less of a national or personal connection to Japanese aggression in WW2.
Your statement that "every person in Asia" knows about the Holocaust is totally not true, and widely known not to be. You can easily search people discussing this matter, with many Asians chiming in that they either didn't know about it, or only knew that six million Jews died because of the Nazis and little else (here's one https://www.quora.com/Are-people-in-...ry-schooling); most of the people I know in China whom I've gotten on the topic with, who are generally well-educated, know very little about what happened in Europe in WW2, and some have even asked me if I really think Hitler was that bad a guy. So... no. Here's an NYT article on the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/w...holocaust.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by article
The Holocaust, however, is not a topic that students at local Chinese schools are likely to encounter in class. “We learned about Chinese history, but not much about world history,” said Ms. Leung, who has since switched from a Chinese school to an international one.
Keep in mind that this is in regards to Hong Kong, which is already much more sympathetic to Western history and whose education is less nationalist than what you'd get here on the Mainland.
So, to your last part:
Quote:
Originally Posted by you
In 2012, A Toronto councilor tried to proclaim the 75th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre, City Hall declined based on the argument that this is "controversial" -- honestly, what is "controversial" about this? Who dare claim the issue of Holocaust is "controversial" nowadays? A counciller and HISTORIAN said "[The massacre] is something that happened purely in an Asian context between two Asian societies,” -- well, we can also say the Holocaust is something that happened in a European context between a bunch of European societies, can't we?
Fact check: there are about 385,000 Jews in Canada today, compared with 1,487,000 Chinese. So to claim what happens in Asia is less relevant is nonsense.
Except that a) whether anyone likes it or not, Canada is historically and currently predominantly of European ethnic and cultural descent, and b) Canada fought against the Germans, and to a lesser extent the Japanese, but had basically nothing to do with China during WW2. The US has 11.4 million Mexican-born immigrants, but doesn't observe, say, the Tlatelolco massacre, which is an official day of mourning in Mexico, because it has nothing to do with it. China doesn't have a Holocaust memorial day, because it had nothing to do with it. No Asian nation has a Holocaust memorial day, because they had nothing to do with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_Memorial_Days
I don't know what you're blathering on and on about, getting worked up over anecdotal experiences. We learned a lot about Japanese atrocities during WWII in school from Nanking and the hundreds of thousands who died building the bridge over the River Kwai to Japanese Unit 731.
The US practically single handedly liberated the entire Pacific from the black fist of the Japanese Empire, so I don't know what you mean about how Americans don't really know about the Japanese in WWII.
Of course what happened in Europe means more to Europeans, I get that, however, every person in Asia know the Holocaust and how millions of Jews were persecuted and murdered, because it is clearly written on every textbook. However, what happens in Asia becomes an insignificant episode for westerners, as if lives of Jews are worth so much more than lives of Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and I think that's shameful.
I do not agree with this statement. Many Chinese, Indians, etc. know very little about WW2 in Europe. In fact there are/were numerous products and stores in India named after Hitler and many Indian people were surprised at the Western/Jewish outrage as they knew so little about what he actually did.
I do not agree with this statement. Many Chinese, Indians, etc. know very little about WW2 in Europe. In fact there are/were numerous products and stores in India named after Hitler and many Indian people were surprised at the Western/Jewish outrage as they knew so little about what he actually did.
WWII (Europe) is in Chinese history textbook and I am sure all who really attended the class know about the Holocaust.
Of course, you can always find people who pick up nothing from school and their parents are equally ignorant if not worse.
Personally I have never met any Chinese person who has no idea about Hitler and the Holocaust. Even my grandparents are familiar with the name.
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