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In nearly 15 years will be the 100 year anniversary of the Nazi party coming to power. Allies had film footage of the crimes of the Nazis knowing that year's from then that people will either forget or deny it really happened. Now, 70 years after the war ended, we have people who either don't believe the extent of the crimes or deny it really happened. The horrors committed by the Nazis and their sympathizers as well as Japan should not be forgotten, denied, nor excused. Even some nation's leaders deny the horrors committed by the Axis during these years. If they deny now, what will they deny 100 years after it started?
Agree that only the insane deny the holocaust or WW2 ever ever happened. However we do have books, films and the net to remember that time in history. And we need to remember that truth as it's going on now,
just in another form.
*shrug* Deniers and revisionists will always exist. On the fringes, as appropriate.
Is the government of Japan on the fringe? When it's your stereotypical loner conspiracy loon then I agree it is t a problem. But when leaders of nations are denying much of this took place, then that is a problem.
Is the government of Japan on the fringe? When it's your stereotypical loner conspiracy loon then I agree it is t a problem. But when leaders of nations are denying much of this took place, then that is a problem.
My dad was carrear Navy during the war. He worked as a raidoman on several ships, big and small, and retired after the war. But he heard of the Japanese warcrimes and when denied refused to ever believe their claims, then OR later, even years after the war. The Germans had to admit to them, but much of the Japanese atrocities were hidden and had few survivors. Many of those who committed them did not get punished because the courts wanted evidence, and knowing they'd pay for it, the plague islands and the barbaric experiments had no documentation remaining, and no survivors. There was no camp full of thousands of half dead prisoners which whole armies discovered. And the German warcrimes were tried first. By the time they got to the Japanese, the public was tired of hearing about it, and wanted to go on. And they had destroyed records so the testimony of the sometimes few survivors were all they could claim. So many Japanese who commited them escaped all punishment.
There were camps standing with their surviving prisoners staring out of half dead eyes, with bodies of those who had died from neglect strewn around, and the crematoiums in tact, and some still stand. The Germans were also forced to face up to what their government had done, even if too many knew denied they knew. They did know people who spoke unwisely dissapeared, and stories. You don't punish the next generation by establishing the truth, but free them from following the same road. But Japan was never made to admit its barbaric acts, and as they had the first atomic bomb dropped on them, could claim victumhood. Many men who were veterans or family of veterans of the Pacific war felt that wrong but by then we had new bad boys in the cold war, and nobody was going to insist.
Over time the legacy of a time fades a bit and becomes part of the historical tapastry, and who did what becomes less than why and what was its legacy. But with so much allowed to be forgotten it will instead fade into background. Hopefully more than Japan having the first atomic bomb dropped on it will be considered. Those who suffered and died in their camps should at least have the justice of being remembered.
I agree that the post World War II Japanese governments have, in a general sense, been deniers of the extent of their country's guilt in various atrocities. And I agree that it is a matter of concern.
However, that part of history is not at all "forgotten" as the thread title erroneously states.
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