I had absolutely NO idea.

[Japaneseseriesfan]

Well, I'm a freshmen. Starting 3rd and 4th quarter, I was excited to learn about World War 1, 2 and many more events during those time. What I didn't realize was how BAD the Holocaust was. After seeing movies such as Saving Private Ryan (for World War 2), The Pianist (for the Holocaust), Schindler's List (for the Holocaust too), and The Boy in Stripped Pajamas, I was speechless.

I had no idea the Nazis were such... creatures. All the things we hear about them in out earlier years were nothing but jokes, but this just makes all those jokes disappear.

No more Jewish jokes or German jokes was uttered in our classes. My jaws dropped when I realized what humanity is truly capable of becoming.

 

[Shoichi]

well, same goes for the Japanese in those days

 

[heroizumi]

Yeah, WWII was terrible from all angles of those involved. You've got Hitler killing off practically everyone. You've got the Japanese bombing the USA. Then there's the USA dropping atomic bombs on Japan. It was a terrible time. I mean sometimes stuff got so bad that Japanese soldiers cannibalized some of the American POWs. Americans tossed pretty much all Asians into camps (regardless of if they were Japanese or not).

I'm just glad we all (well for the most part) get along fine. I'm in the midst of an international community right now. At my dorm building we've got 6 Chinese girls, an English girl, a German guy, a Canadian guy, an Australian guy, a Finnish guy and then the two Americans, myself and another guy. Our next door neighbors are of course Japanese. Other than a few noise complaints from our neighbors when we had some parties, we all get along fine. ^__^

 

[MetalSymphony]

War...........War never changes.

Fun fact: the Japanese DID bomb the Continental USA during the war. Twice.

They dropped Firebomb's on a Oregon Forest trying to start some Forest Fires. They failed both times as the bomb's did very little damage.

 

[Shoichi]

you have got to read about the Japanese torture and sex crimes from Nanking all the way down to Singapore, and stuff like the Sook Ching Massacre and various ethnic cleanup operations they undertook against anti-Japanese elements.

their crimes were so inhumane that Japan's history textbooks contain distorted records of their wartime acts. can't blame their younger generation for not knowing either

 

[Quark]

The Rape of Nanking certainly isn't a coffee table book.

 

[KingRanger]

well, same goes for the Japanese in those days

The Japanese military and government at the time. Lets not lump ALL of them in that description. The military did very foul things to their own people. The Japanese civilians had no choice in what was going on around them.

 

[Bolt]

They had the same choice that the citizens of any other involved nation had, which was supporting and upholding propaganda.

If you want to watch a very disturbing, very powerful film detailing some of the war crimes of the Japanese during the late stages of WW2, check out Men Behind The Sun, but be warned, it's not for the faint of heart. Pretty gruesome stuff.

 

[KingRanger]

One thing that most don't think about is that it's easy to make certain statements based on hind sight. The Japanese people were forced into doing things by their own military. Their families were threatened. Hell some soldiers were told if they didn't do what their government wanted their families would be killed.

 

[kibapower]

The dark side of humanity has surfaced before, so much travesty over a single assassination.

I find WW2 disturbingly interesting since you had so much going on in many different areas compared to WW1, far beyond what's taught in public school. I'm still curious about parts outside of Europe and the Pacific.