Whitewashing History: The Japanese Denial of World War II Crimes
 
Jenny Chen
High School Student
North Potomac,  Maryland,  USA
 
 
Even in such awful acts such as war, there are rules. The Hague Conventions of 1899 dictated the humane treatment of prisoners of war (POW), the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925 prohibited the “use of poison gas and practice of bacteriological warfare”1, the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 extended protections to civilians. Diplomats from Japan were present at all these conventions and signed all of these laws. No one would dream that Japan would be guilty of violating these laws in a horrible massacre later known as: The Rape of Nanking. Almost 70 years later, the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge their war crimes. This denial threatens pan-Asian relations, betrays the Japanese people, and ultimately obstructs the progress of humanity as a whole.
In December of 1937, the Japanese army began its ruthless takeover of China with capturing the capital (Nanking) as the ultimate goal. The Japanese Imperial Army launched an orgy of senseless bloodshed. In six weeks, an estimated 260,000–300,000 Chinese people were killed through the most horrific means. Men would be used for bayonet practices and suffered many wounds before dying. People would be forced to undergo “water treatment” in which water and kerosene was pumped into their noses and mouths until their bowels burst. Victims would be buried waist deep before the Japanese unleashed German shepherds and watched as the dogs tore the bodies up. The Japanese nailed prisoners to boards and ran over them with army tanks. Soldiers would entertain themselves by drenching groups of Chinese people and lighting them on fire, watching as the group burst into flames and were slowly reduced to ashes. Witnesses saw soldiers stripping a victim before ordering a German Shepard to bite several parts of the body. The dog not only “ripped open his belly but jerked out his intestines along the ground for a distance”2. Japanese soldiers ate the hearts and livers of victims. Soldiers cut the penises off of dead men and sold them to “Japanese customers who believed that eating them would increase virility”3.
While violent raiding was taking place, a more secret operation was being manned by Major General Ishii. On April 18, 1939, Ishii established Unit 1644, a biological warfare operation in Nanking in addition to his already sprawling network of germ research throughout China. Hiroshi Matsumoto, a former Japanese soldier confessed in a 1997 interview that prisoners were completely dehumanized and “were all naked and kept in cages that looked like cages for animals…in the size of 1.2 meters to 1.3 meters in height, side, and width. [Prisoners] had to always have their legs crossed…after [Japanese scientists] injected live germs into prisoners [the scientists] would wait until the germs spread in the blood”4. The Japanese soldiers often infected whole villages with cholera, typhoid, and dysentry. Bacteria assuming the identity of vaccines were administered to children and poisoned foods were given to hungry villagers.
There was also a literal rape–of more than 80,000 Chinese women–after Nanking succumbed to the Japanese forces. No female on the streets–whether eight or eighty years old–was spared. Japanese soldiers also crammed various assortments of objects into the women’s vaginas–bamboo sticks, knives, nails, and even firecrackers. Once a firecracker was lit, the victim would be blown up amidst jeers from Japanese soldiers. In some cases, the Japanese slices open the vaginas of preteen girls in order to “ravish them more effectively”2. Each raped woman was killed “because dead bodies don’t talk”2, says Azuma Shiro, a former Japanese World War II soldier.
But there was a figurative rape as well. The Japanese government has denied their painful history for many decades, stripping their Asian victims of dignity and self-worth. It has taken Japan 68 years to issue a formal, albeit vague, apology for “wartime aggression”5, but one would have to question the sincerity of this apology. This apology came after Japan had submitted a formal bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and Japanese history textbooks still decidedly ignore Japan’s war crimes during World War II. The government defends its censorship of textbooks by saying that there is a need to “teach our children a history of Japan that they can be proud of”6. As writer Paul Gordon Shalow says, “According to this way of thinking, a shameful past is not something to be acknowledged, reflected upon, and overcome, but to be ignored or whitewashed, and forgotten”5.
Immediately following the massacre, imperial authorities “imposed a blackout in Japan of all mass media info related to the matter. Few Japanese nationals on the home front or elsewhere had any idea of the horrors their military had perpetrated. Since then and right up to this day, Japanese [revisionists], right wing publishers have salted the deep wounds with double talk, justifications, and bald-faced denial”7. Japanese writers such as Katsuichi Honda who have written and researched extensively about the Rape of Nanking and other Japanese war crimes are reviled and ostracized by the Japanese public. Honda receives death-threats from high officials and is so criticized that he must wear a bulletproof vest, and a disguise whenever he speaks in public for fear of his life. Former, conscience-ridden soldiers such as Shiro Azuma who kept a diary documenting the atrocities in Nanking and published it after the war have been attacked by many right-wing politicians for being involved in a conspiracy with the Chinese Kuomintang. Jun Kamei, a former Shukan Shincho newsmagazine writer and assistant editor recognizes that “Magazines such as Shukan Shincho and Shukan Bunshun clearly embody the tendency to beat to the drum of nationalism”6. Although Japan claims to be a Democratic country, its government still possesses eerily nationalistic overtones. In what truly democratic country would writers of the truth such as Honda be forced to walk outside in public in disguise and be bombarded with death threats that are not investigated by the police? In what truly democratic country would the government issue a “blackout” of all information relating to its war crimes? In what truly democratic nation would the media be used as propaganda that claims that all those who affirm the truth of the Japanese atrocities to be involved in an “anti-Japanese” conspiracy?
The Japanese people have been denied a true and accurate story of their history and have been led to believe lies. The Japanese people have been bombarded with such news titles as “A Strange Japanese Who Makes Up Stories of the Mobilization of Comfort Women” (Shukan Shincho, January 5, 1995)6. The Japanese public are being groomed for a similar mindset that was present shortly before World War II–that Japanese people are superior and incapable of making mistakes and that they are victim of a worldwide vendetta that seeks to control them. Should Japan enter another war with this mindset, its people will blindly fight for a false cause. In the end however, it will be the betrayed Japanese people who will suffer enormous consequences–deaths of beloved ones, and perhaps defeat once again.
It is crucial for other nations to remember and publicize this dark period of history. If Japan enters another war because of its militaristic and nationalistic undertones, the whole world will suffer because methods of warfare have evolved to be more deadly than ever. The public investigation of Japanese war crimes would alert other nations to the other atrocities that humans are capable of doing and advise them to take appropriate precautions. Imagine if we did not know that the Holocaust had happened. The Geneva Conventions that protect civilians would not have been held and the UN would not be created. Because of our knowledge of humans’ potential for cruelty, the world has reacted quickly to crises like Darfur and 9/11. Finally, there is a moral issue to acknowledging and, compensating victims for their suffering. There are hundreds of victims and former soldiers who are plagued with nightmares of the past. There are also the souls of so many people who have died as a result of Japanese crimes whose deaths are denied. It is the responsibility of the human population to right these wrongs and to help bring out the truths to honor the deaths of our fellow human beings. These people are being imprisoned – not in a concentration camp, nor a biological camp – but by the shackles of lies and deception.
But why has the Japanese government been able to get away with denial for such a long time? The war ridden Asian governments at that time were too weak to petition for justice. Once “China became Communist and the United States had solidified its cooperative arrangements with Japan, the United States lost virtually all interest in exposing war crimes”6. The pressure that was placed on Germany for its war crimes was not placed on Japan. Sadly, some United States decision makers were also willing to compromise justice in order to gain much coveted information that was documented from the Japanese cruel biological experimentation programs. Although an investigation had been made immediately after the surrender of the Japanese by the Soviet Union during the Khabarovsk proceedings in which twelve Japanese bio-war complicit officials were convicted, General MacArthur had struck a deal with General Ishii that granted Ishii full immunity in exchange for information. Thus, during the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the whole issue of a bio-war program was avoided and general Ishii and several of his subordinates were never convicted. The cover-ups and the lack of pressure resulted in a trial where much evidence was not brought out into the public. As a result, only 25 Japanese generals were found guilty. Only six were sentenced to death, the rest were convicted with a few decades or life imprisonment. 15 of the 25 convicted were paroled within 10 years. Many of those paroled ended up occupying the highest positions in the government and universities and have set up the nationalistic government that exists today.
It is clear that more needs to be done to bring out the Japanese crimes to the general public. The Western world should shoulder the responsibility of being the most advanced nations of the world and start teaching more about the Japanese Imperial Army’s purge of Asia, with the same weight that they give the Holocaust. Indeed, the purge of Asia killed more than 22 million non-Japanese Asians–most of them civilians– which is more than double the amount of people killed during the Holocaust. This is not to belittle the importance of the Nazis Holocaust but to point out that the Japanese campaign to eradicate all non-Japanese Asians merits an equal examination by today’s scholars and students. The Rape of Nanking receives less than a couple of sentences in American textbooks whereas entire units in elementary school, middle school, and high school are devoted to the Holocaust.
There needs to be a cohesive group started in the United States filled with full-time staff who are dedicated to bringing out the truth of World War II in Asia. This group must establish itself quickly, fundraise and educate the American community. But most importantly, this group must lobby the United States Congress for more attention to this forgotten history and to place more political pressure on Japan. Secondly, this organization should lobby the United Nations to have this issue placed on the international agenda of items to discuss. There must be more pressure from the international community. There needs to be an unbiased investigation that brings forth testimony, pictures, and documentation. There is also a lack of scholarly research and written material on this topic such as Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking, and The Good Man of Nanking by John Rabe. Young students and seasoned researchers should be encouraged to bring the truth out into print. Finally, money should be raised to build a museum or a memorial commemorating the deaths of so many innocent people in America, similar to the Holocaust Museum. Once such a memorial has been erected, there can be no denying that such an event happened. The victimized Asians cannot achieve recognition alone; they need the support of the international community and other prominent officials. Only when the international community pressures Japan will the Japanese government realize that its wartime crimes are not taken lightly by other nations. It will finally be forced to face their history.
No amount of compensation can even begin to adequately offset the damages created by the Japanese Imperial Army in the wake of World War II. However, compensation must be made to prove the sincerity of Japanese apologies and will alleviate some of the pain that their victims have endured. Furthermore, compensation will prove to the international community that Japan is serious about not committing such a crime again. Of the 6 million Jews that were killed during the Nazi regime, Germany has paid compensation of more than $10.8 billion. The Japanese government has paid nothing. In addition, the Japanese government must fully acknowledge their past by ending their persecution of those who have spoken out about the Rape of Nanking and educating their youth on the war crimes by revising their textbooks and starting a unit that teaches children about the horrors of the war that was fought years ago. This issue cannot be glossed over again. In addition, the war criminals that are enshrined as martyrs at the Yasukuni Shrine who ordered the deaths of many innocent civilians should be removed from the shrine. While worshipping ancestors is part of a religion that is steeped in tradition, there is no religion in the world that advocates the worship of men who were cold-blooded mass murderers.
Perhaps the most chilling truth of the war is that the soldiers who fought and committed these crimes were ordinary people. How were they mobilized to commit such heinous crimes against fellow human beings? The answer lies in Japanese propaganda before the war. As is common knowledge, Japanese propaganda painted Japan as a country that is superior to all other countries and was being threatened by those who felt resentful of Japan’s superiority. Emperor Hirohito was known as a living god. Prior to Japan’s defeat, no ordinary Japanese citizen had even seen the Emperor. The Japanese people were led blindly into the war, believing that they were defending Japan–with its holy Emperor–against the inferior countries of the world. This mindset is eerily similar to the propaganda that is spewed through Japan’s media today–that no crimes had ever happened, that the Japanese government is above such evil mistakes, and that everyone who says otherwise are part of an anti-Japanese conspiracy. Given the killing of the truth in Japan today, committing the same crimes as they did in the past is a very real possibility for the Japanese people. As Sherwood Eddy and Kirby Page wrote in The Abolition of War (1924), “The first casualty of war is truth”.
 

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1 Trombley, Maria. "A Brief History of the Laws of War." Society of Professional Journalists. 2003. 27 June 2007 <http://spj.org/ gc-history.asp>.
2 Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: BasicBooks, 1997.
3
4 Barenblatt, Daniel. A Plague Against Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program . New York: Harper Collins, 2004
5 “Japan’s Koizumi apologises for wartime aggression amid China row” AFP News, April 22, 2005
6 “Japan’s War Responsibilty and the Pan-Asian Movement for Redress and Compensation: An Overview East Asia by: Paul Gordon Schalow
7 Gamble, Adam, and Takesato Watanabe. A Public Betrayed: An Inside Look at Japanese Medi Atrocities and Their Warnings to the West. Washington D.C: Regnery, 2004.