I was talking to someone who denies the atrocities of imperial Japan during WW2. According to this person the US spent 7 years looking into Nazi and Japanese war crimes and produced this report by the IWG.
The reports find very little evidence of comfort women. But explains that
Licensed prostitution was legal in prewar Japan, and Allied officials viewed the small part of the overseas system they uncovered as an extension of homeland practices. Prosecuting Japanese soldiers for rape, a notorious crime everywhere the army set foot, took precedence over investigating the circumstances of “comfort women,” who were seen as professional prostitutes, not as unwilling victims coerced into brothels by employees of the Japanese military.
Hence why it was scarce.
Also apparently Unit 731 never existed, and the rape of Nanjing did not happen or was largely exaggerated.
I assume these things are rather documented from many first hand accounts?
Pure atrocity denial. It’s been going on in Japan for years. There are volumes of eye witness accounts and images and footage. Yale library has boxes and boxes of photos and film reels taken by missionaries and diplomats.
I’m curious to know why the IWG report produced so little. Perhaps it due to the fact it seems that they only looked through official US documents of the time? I think even members of unit 731 have made testimonials of what went down.
It’s possible Nanjing had some exaggeration by the Chinese, as they have used it as propaganda against the Japanese. But it seems crazy to deny it with so many first hand accounts.
Mind you, for purposes of comparison, the KMT stands accused of killing around one million civilians suspected of being communist sympathizers during the civil war. They would march into villages previously visited by the communists and kill everyone if they suspected the villagers had given assistance.
A significant portion of comfort women were Taiwanese and Korean. I think the IWG viewed both Taiwan as Korea as a part of Japan, neglecting the fact that both were colonies and that the Japanese never did consider those they colonized as equals.
If the Japanese coerced Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese or anyother groups of people into being “comfort women” then the IWG would investigate the matter seriously.
It’s a funny one. For whatever reason, the Japanese just can’t accept what happened and move on - which is odd, since it was grandparents or people who are now dead who committed those crimes.
My best guess is that what they did was so dreadful - particularly since the Japanese view themselves as a race apart who are more evolved than the rest of us - that their minds just shut down if they try to contemplate the facts. Although comparisons are made with Germany, I think the situation was qualitatively different. Most German soldiers were no more brutal than Allied soldiers, and the Nazi atrocities were committed by a smallish clique who were shielded from the judgement of their peers. Japanese atrocities, on the other hand, went pretty much all the way down through the ranks.
Most human beings can’t accept that evil lurks in everyone, and it must be next-to-impossible to acknowledge the depths of depravity that every Japanese soldier sunk to.
I’d put the difference in that most Germans-some sincerely, some no doubt just publicly- have accepted war guilt, and apologized for it. That’s why Hiroshima and Nagasaki are useful to Japanese militarists. They can present Japanese as victims.
Well yes - but to apologize you must first accept that the thing happened, and then feel guilt/remorse about it. The Japanese appear not to got past the first step, and the question is “why?”
And I have to agree with BiggusDickus that an apology, in the context of what was done, doesn’t really help. Acceptance of the facts is the issue - until that happens, people will continue to mistrust the Japanese nation.
It’s a long and winding history. But let’s just say that some of the recent deals made (by men) at the highest levels of government (i.e. state-to-state) between South Korea and Japan have attempted to “settle” and close matters irrevocably and permanently. Too bad they didn’t involve any of the women affected by this history. And of course this top-down attempt at “closure” failed.
Some of them are commemorated here in Taiwan in Jinshan, where they were forced labour in the mines.
What’s missing from THAT picture is why the British (and Canadians and Australians etc) were in HK and Singapore—that is, the history of British empire and colonialism. When the Japanese military showed up, it was one empire brutally displacing another.
The British should apologise to people of Hong Kong and Singapore before apologising to the Japanese. However, the Japanese should apologise to all of them?
right; how does that work? 1945. 75 years ago. Apologies are part of forgiveness, but they are between the offended and the offender. An apology from anyone else doesn’t mean so much. You would need responsible parties, and they would be at least a hundred years old. Are there any people in a position of authority in Japan that were part of any of the decisions made then?
