How Do the Japanese Teach About WWII?

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off their first six bottle box just follow the link below take the quiz get started and let's get into the video [Music] regarding the reception of world war ii especially within the educational system of countries that participated in the war one would expect that many broad facts are common knowledge and as happens with most all wars in history each nation biases things a little bit to make themselves look better in their own history books regardless of what actually happened as we recently covered however the germans and world war ii are a rather interesting exception to this rule you can see our video how the germans teach about world war ii for more on that obviously this brings us to a top voted question from that video how does one of germany's chief allies in that war japan teach about world war ii and their country's part in that historic conflict this is seemingly asked as while perhaps not to the scale of germany the japanese military was notorious for its behavior as an occupying army and its extreme use of force leading to enslavement of parts of populations and widespread massacres the scars this period left in the formerly occupied countries are felt to this very day not only in the history books but also in works of art and literature such as dragon seed by pearl s bach more specifically these war crimes resulted in the deaths of between 3 and 14 million people and include systematic extermination such as the massacre at nanjing in late 1937-1938 at the time nanjing was the capital of china and the death toll is estimated at between 50 and 300 000 people sometimes specific groups were targeted such as the hui people furthermore virtual enslavement of people took place as laborers or enforced prostitution for example the use of sex slaves known as comfort women was systematic and widespread in korea china thailand and many other countries under the yoke of the japanese at the time additionally captors were used for experimentation most notorious is unit 731 a military unit established by an imperial order that conducted experiments on civilians building from the ashes literally of a previous program the epidemic prevention and water purification department of the kwantong army unit 731 for short was authorized in 1936. bases were established at various places in china including pinphang and hishiking referring to their victims as maruta meaning logs the researchers experimented on apparently anyone they could get their hands on chinese russians koreans mongolians pacific islanders other southeast asians and even a few american prisoners of war all fell victim to the doctors at the camps taking the scientific method to new lows the researchers in unit 731 conducted a variety of experiments for example effects of lethal doses victims were purposefully infected with fatal contagious diseases like the bubonic plague so researchers could learn exactly how the diseases affected the human body because they feared that decomposition which begins immediately once a person dies might corrupt tissues they dissected their victims alive likewise because they were worried that drugs might blemish their findings the victims were given no anesthetic rather they were vivisected while fully conscious of what was happening next up we have limb amputation the scientists wanted to learn the limits of the human body and so conducted a number of tests on their victims arms and legs sometimes the limbs were frozen and thawed in order to study how frostbite and gangrene developed at other times limbs were cut off and sewn back onto the other side of the body in a few experiments when the limbs were removed researchers just observed the loss of blood moving on from there many victims had all or part of their organs removed and some even had organs detached then reattached in unique ways nature never intended experiments were also conducted with high pressure poisonous chemical exposure centrifuges burning blood infusions from animals burying and x-rays of course since the purpose of these tests was to determine how much a body could withstand the experiments would generally continue until the test subject was dead given all of this it may or may not surprise you to hear from people raised in japan that they hardly learned 20th century japanese history in class for example in a bbc report from 2013 it is noted that one major japanese school's history book contains only 19 out of 357 pages dealing with events between 1931 and 1945 with for example the nanjing massacre occupying only one line as historian stephenie ambrose wrote the japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this one day for no reason we ever understood the americans started dropping atomic bombs on us but is this actually an accurate summation or is it simply cherry-picked by the victors to really dive into it it's necessary to understand a little bit about the school systems of japan it turns out what you learn as a student in japan can be directly related to which school you attend but also in which decade you were born in japan unlike say most eu countries the books used in schools are issued by private companies instead of a central authority the ministry of education's role is limited to the approval of the various books subsequently each school district can then choose a book from the list of approved material the system was initially thought of as a beneficiary step in the aftermath of the world war as it represented one aspect of spreading american capitalistic views of privatization in japan it also at least on the surface prevented the interference of the political system in education which at the time seemed like a good idea since this political system was born and raised within the recently defeated japanese empire however as previously alluded the government still has a say in the process since a special board within the ministry of education carries the task of approving the content of the textbooks before making them available on the book list at this step it has used its power to reject drafts for reasons that are seen as controversial allegedly simply mentioning wrongdoings committed by the japanese empire before 1945 has in some instances constituted enough reason for exclusion from the school textbook lists these cases are found not just in the 1950s but also in the 2000s an important note is it is not the mere mention of massacres such as nanjing that could cause the exclusion of a book but the use of negative tone regarding the way the japanese empire acted in general at the time so although the government is not officially denying the crimes it does not seem to actively discourage the wave of war crime deniers even from members of the parliament this seems an odd choice especially when compared to other defeated nations of the same war such as germany where as in 17 other european countries denying the holocaust is explicitly against the law furthermore in the education system of these countries the war crimes are dealt with in excruciating detail and not only in history class but extending to almost all other subjects maybe only maths and physics aside as for directly after the war unlike the nazi regime in germany or the fascist administration in italy the defeated leadership of japan could not be used as an easily isolated political scapegoat to attribute all of the nation's crimes to in fact the leadership of japan did not seem to change as dramatically as in other axis countries after the war the figurehead of the emperor hirohito for example remained in place although deprived of many of his powers and abdicating his godhood the result is that the newly formed democracy had many links to a period which the japanese wanted and perhaps still want to be proud of in contrast to the european access powers the japanese empire did not have a predecessor which could be used as a basis for a new or re-established system of government furthermore although the us forces occupying japan under general macarthur between 1945 and 1952 led many accused war criminals to military tribunals many of the high-ranking officials allegedly guilty of war crimes actually escaped judgment that said after the war the japanese officially issued many apologies and reached settlements with former colonized countries such as south korea in 1965 but at the same time as mentioned the generations raised after the war tended to learn very little of the atrocities committed during the war one of the many reasons for this was the entanglement of the cold war policy with that teaching history in july 1955 two years after the end of the war of korea textbooks containing the atrocities of the japanese army were condemned by the japanese parliament the stated reason for this was that the textbooks should not aid in presenting the now communist countries in a favorable light the invasion of china and the occupation of manchuria were to be omitted when possible textbooks explicitly dealing with japanese wrongdoings against countries that used the war as a way to attack the capitalist japanese and therefore enforce policies that could be seen as communists were characterized as read textbooks within the rising cold war tensions the new requirement formed was that the wars japan was involved in during the 30s and 40s were not to be criticized this movement escalated causing the banning of more than a quarter of the books used in schools at that time one solution to avoid the ban was for authors to skip this period entirely or focus on it only in a very summarizing way so it's not surprising that history books would have more pages regarding the pleisa teen epoch than the pacific war moreover the entanglement with cold war policies might explain why the americans were okay with this and didn't really push for anything different in the aftermath of the war going forward in time the cold war would not remain the major factor behind this view towards history and indeed in many cases japanese citizens would seek out learning opportunities about the war despite the dark aspects of their country's past if not always through school itself than by other means such as exposure to western media but nevertheless the controversies have not ceased in large part due to the rise of nationalism on both sides as you might imagine from this despite this all having occurred many decades ago when even many of our grandparents were still in diapers the lack of a full education on these matters and the reasons behind them can cause a series of tensions for example japan and south korea to an outside observer the two countries from a geopolitical and strategic view should have been close allies they are broadly speaking similar in their political institutions commerce and industry mentality and face similar challenges in trade and politics for example with respect to north korea china and russia despite this the two countries show a strong antagonism sometimes with intentional sabotage of each other's industry a policy which has been dubbed a trade war the reason seems to stem in part from the tension surrounding the japanese korean history as can be clearly seen in news tabloids stances as those mentioned previously regarding denial of the war abuses are met with harsh critique which in turn is sometimes answered one example is the korean supreme court's decision in 2012 in favor of victims or their surviving families on the issue of seeking reimbursement for work done during their enslavement that benefited japanese industry such a possibility would hit many japanese companies hard indeed for japan any talk of monetary reparation was considered to be over following the 1965 agreement which ended in more than two billion dollars being paid to the korean government as compensation which in fact was an admission of guilt although the two countries have come to an agreement since the tension in principle remains unresolved in contrast as a result of germany and germans taking collective responsibility for their actions during the war their alliance with countries such as france with whom a harmonized relationship of cooperation developed post-war occurred relatively quickly despite the fact that centuries-old rivalry existed even aside from the occupation during the second world war would it have been so if germany hadn't immediately chosen to take such extreme responsibility for its actions during the war in the end almost all nations tend to view a period in which they were the most powerful favorably it comes as no surprise that this period of power is most often linked with some kind of military expansion accompanied by a we are better than the other's view which almost inevitably leads to the feeling of national superiority intolerance and varied acts of cruelty sometimes in a widespread and horrific form in short the abuse of the so recently gained power japan is not the exception but rather the rule in this regard as almost all nations of the world tend to follow this trend more or less with their own histories so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe also please do check out our fantastic sponsor brightsellers link below and thank you for watching you

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 1,797,518

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Id: 9K4zhfMHM4U

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020