History: What a twisted world we live in

[Narmer]

It seems that the dictum 'Nations don't have friends, they have interests' is true. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan may have a lot in common, including forming an alliance that included (unreliable) Italy. However, while the Germans were rounding Jews up in the Holocaust, the Japanese were rescuing and settling them in Japan-occupied China. The reason was purely strategic but it explains one reason why Western countries from Israel, the United States and on down have been quiet about what Japan was doing in Asia, saved for the atrocities committed to Western servicemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu_Plan

Approximately 24,000 Jews escaped the Holocaust either by immigrating through Japan or living under direct Japanese rule by the policies surrounding Japan's pro-Jewish attitude.[24] While this was not the 50,000 expected,[25], and those who arrived did not have the expected wealth to contribute to the Japanese economy, the achievement of the plan is looked back upon favorably. Chiune Sugihara was bestowed the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1985. In addition, the Mir Yeshiva, one of the largest centers of rabbinical study today, and the only European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust, survived as a result of these events.
Inuzuka's help in rescuing Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe was acknowledged by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States which saved him from being tried as a war criminal. He went on to establish the Japan-Israel Association and was president until his death in 1965.

 

[Craig234]

It seems that the dictum 'Nations don't have friends, they have interests' is true. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan may have a lot in common, including forming an alliance that included (unreliable) Italy. However, while the Germans were rounding Jews up in the Holocaust, the Japanese were rescuing and settling them in Japan-occupied China. The reason was purely strategic but it explains one reason why Western countries from Israel, the United States and on down have been quiet about what Japan was doing in Asia, saved for the atrocities committed to Western servicemen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu_Plan

This story doesn't seem all that important IMO. Japan, by allying with Hitler, helped him remain in power where he killed millions of Jews dwarfing any few saved in this story.

Japan and Germany if I understand it barely talked during the war, no coordination of the war effort once Japan drug Germany into the war through their treaty.

The allies of course had a big advantage working together - even if it was a quite hostile alliance.

I wish I could find the reference for a poll I saw recently that WWII soldiers were surveyed on Jews, and the question that stood out was 'Do Jews have any redeeming qualities?'

Hard to believe but 86% said 'no'. Thank goodness that has changed.

 

[Narmer]

This story doesn't seem all that important IMO. Japan, by allying with Hitler, helped him remain in power where he killed millions of Jews dwarfing any few saved in this story.

Japan and Germany if I understand it barely talked during the war, no coordination of the war effort once Japan drug Germany into the war through their treaty.

The allies of course had a big advantage working together - even if it was a quite hostile alliance.

I wish I could find the reference for a poll I saw recently that WWII soldiers were surveyed on Jews, and the question that stood out was 'Do Jews have any redeeming qualities?'

Hard to believe but 86% said 'no'. Thank goodness that has changed.

The numbers may be insignificant but the strategic analysis and action went a long way towards sprucing up Japan's image in the West compared to Nazi Germany.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Japan was doing in Asia, saved for the atrocities committed to Western servicemen

In the meantime, Japan was committing some of the worst atrocities humanity has ever witnessed against the Chinese and other Asians in the "decolonization" campaign to create a "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changde_chemical_weapon_attack#Use_of_chemical_weapon_attack

Unit 731 airdropped fleas contaminated with bubonic plague on Changde
....
fire poison gas artillery shells into the city. The shells possibly contained mustard gas or lewisite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaimingye_germ_weapon_attack

Using airdropped wheat, corn, scraps of cotton cloth and sand infested with plague infected fleas,[1] an outbreak was started

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#Activities

Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.[11][13] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.[11][14] The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.

Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.[16] Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.[11] Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.[11] Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.

Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions.[11] Flame throwers were tested on humans.[11] Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, and explosive bombs.

Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.[11] To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied[11]. Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare[citation needed].
Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.[11] Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians.[19]
Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644, Unit 100, et cetera) were involved in research, development, and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, coastal Ningbo in 1940, and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1941.

IMO Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army made the US conducted in Guatemala ~70 years ago (while terrible) look like child's play.

Read up on more Japanese war crimes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese military murdered from nearly 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people, most likely 6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese, among others, including Western prisoners of war.

....

in China alone, during 1937-45, approximately 3.9 million Chinese were killed, mostly civilians, as a direct result of the Japanese operations and 10.2 millions in the course of the war.[30] The most infamous incident during this period was the Nanking Massacre of 1937-38, when, according to the findings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Japanese Army massacred as many as 300,000 civilians and prisoners of war

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There's nothing surprising here. Katanas were rated by the number of bodies that could be cut through at once, and no one was concerned if the bodies weren't already dead. We are consummate executioners.

 

[FTM0305]

processing....


processing...

printing results...


Nuke them all.

Then us for nuking them.

 

[JTsyo]

From reading that it doesn't seem they were doing this from the goodness in their hearts but hoping to attract wealth from Europe.

 

[Drako]

Largely a piece of fiction - history not found.

 

[CanOWorms]

In the meantime, Japan was committing some of the worse atrocities humanity has ever witnessed against the Chinese and other Asians in the "decolonization" campaign to create a "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

The dual nature of the countries during the conflict is interesting. At the same time the British were massacring millions of citizens in their slave colonies in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.

 

[Narmer]

Largely a piece of fiction - history not found.

Which part? All of it?

 

[Infohawk]

The dual nature of the countries during the conflict is interesting. At the same time the British were massacring millions of citizens in their slave colonies in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.

Was there a "dual nature" for the Brits too? Or were they just all bad?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Was there a "dual nature" for the Brits too? Or were they just all bad?

England is part of Europe. I bet we can all guess what that means to him.

 

[woolfe9999]

The numbers may be insignificant but the strategic analysis and action went a long way towards sprucing up Japan's image in the West compared to Nazi Germany.

The problem with your analysis is that very few westerners even knew about Japan's protection of some Jews, and those who did largely would not have cared. Even Hitler's Holocaust hardly mattered in western culture until the 1970's.

Japan was given a "free pass" in the post war years for the same reason that Germany was also largely given a free pass. Because both countries were wanted as allies in the Cold War. Sure we prosecuted some war criminals, but our ire was directed against Nazis in particular, not as much Germans. And so far as common wartime bigotry, the anti-"Jap" attitude persisted far past that of Germanaphobia and was much more severe.

- wolf

 

[Narmer]

The problem with your analysis is that very few westerners even knew about Japan's protection of some Jews, and those who did largely would not have cared. Even Hitler's Holocaust hardly mattered in western culture until the 1970's.

Japan was given a "free pass" in the post war years for the same reason that Germany was also largely given a free pass. Because both countries were wanted as allies in the Cold War. Sure we prosecuted some war criminals, but our ire was directed against Nazis in particular, not as much Germans. And so far as common wartime bigotry, the anti-"Jap" attitude persisted far past that of Germanaphobia and was much more severe.

- wolf

That may be so but it's virtually non-existent in popular culture, at least not today.