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Laurence Rees - Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II

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Laurence Rees Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II
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The question is as searing as it is fundamental to the continuing debate over Japanese culpability in World War II and the period leading up to it: How could Japanese soldiers have committed such acts of violence against Allied prisoners of war and Chinese civilians? During the First World War, the Japanese fought on the side of the Allies and treated German POWs with respect and civility. In the years that followed, under Emperor Hirohito, conformity was the norm and the Japanese psyche became one of selfless devotion to country and emperor; soon Japanese soldiers were to engage in mass murder, rape, and even cannibalization of their enemies. Horror in the East examines how this drastic change came about. On the basis of never-before-published interviews with both the victimizers and the victimized, and drawing on never-before-revealed or long-ignored archival records, Rees discloses the full horror of the war in the Pacific, probing the supposed Japanese belief in their own racial superiority, analyzing a military that believed suicide to be more honorable than surrender, and providing what the Guardian calls a powerful, harrowing account of appalling inhumanity...impeccably researched.

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HORROR IN THE EAST HORROR IN THE EAST Japan and the Atrocities of - photo 1

HORROR
IN THE EAST
HORROR
IN THE EAST
Japan and the Atrocities
of World War II

Laurence Rees

Copyright 2001 by Laurence Rees All rights reserved No part of this - photo 2

Copyright 2001 by Laurence Rees.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America.

First published in 2001 by BBC Books, an imprint of BBC Worldwide Publishing,
BBC Worldwide Limited, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 OTT.
(Published to accompany the television series Horror in the East , first broadcast on
BBC 2 in 2000.) Writer and producer: Laurence Rees.

PICTURE CREDITS

Photo Section 1:
Mainichi, Tokyo; Mainichi; NARA; Popperfoto; Hulton Getty; NARA; Hulton Getty;
Hulton Getty; Hulton Getty; Hulton Getty; Mainichi; Imperial War Museum.

Photo Section 2:
Hulton Getty; Hulton Getty; Jan Ruff; Masayo Enomoto; Popperfoto; Imperial War Museum;
Naruto House; Imperial War Museum; Hulton Getty; Australian War Memorial;
Australian War Memorial; Bill Hedges; Hulton Getty; NARA.

Photo Section 3:
Kenichiro Oonuki; Hulton Getty; Hulton Getty; NARA; Ralph Crane/Timepix; Hulton Getty;
Yoshiko Hashimoto; Ishikawa Kiyoko; Ishikawa Kiyoko; NARA; Hulton Getty;
NARA; Michael Witowich; Hulton Getty; Corbis.

Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

First Da Capo Press edition 2002
Reprinted by arrangement with BBC Worldwide Ltd.
ISBN 0-306-81178-2
eBook ISBN: 9780786746897

Published by Da Capo Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
http://www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the
U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information,
please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group,
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, or call (800) 255-1514 or (617) 252-5298,
or e-mail .

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 906 05 04 03 02

To Benedict Rees and Ann Cattini


FOREWORD

C an history be shared? This is the key question Laurence Rees raises in this important book. And the book gives a resoundingly affirmative response to that question.

There is a temptation to view a nations past primarily, if not entirely, in the national framework: to consider its history as sui generis , a product of its own culture, to be understood in the context of its own indigenous development. A recent school textbook in Japan one that has aroused a storm of protest from Korea, China, and other countries states that there are as many histories as there are nations, with the implication that a countrys history must be comprehended, appreciated, and judged in terms of its peoples ideas, interests, and values. Defenders of this sort of self-centred nationalism and such people are found everywhere believe that a given people understand their history better than other peoples, and that foreigners should not stand in judgment over it.

Horror in the East , both as a documentary and as a book, takes the opposite view. It has been produced on the assumption that the past must be shared, that it is open to anyone to examine, and that the quest for historical understanding knows no national boundaries. Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Australians, Americans, British, and others who appear in the book (and in the documentary film) all seek to understand, whether as participants in past dramas or as contemporary commentators, the human tragedy that was the horror in Asia during the Second World War.

To speak ofhorror, of course, implies moral judgment. But the judgment is not necessarily that of one nation condemning another nation, for no nation is free of moral culpability. Rather, the judgment is, first, the application of universal human standards to specific deeds of barbarism committed by individuals; it is, second, an effort to understand why atrocities of such magnitude were perpetrated at specific moments in time; it is, finally, an act of linking the present to the past in which todays generation speaks to an earlier generation.

The book is rich in detail, containing some episodes the BBC team discovered in dust-covered archives in Japan, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and elsewhere. The interviews, especially of Japanese veterans, are vivid reminders of what it was like to live, and to face certain death, in the valley of darkness, the term that is often used to describe the war years. There are no taboos in the story; Rees, for instance, asks pertinent questions about the role of the emperor and examines them dispassionately, avoiding dogmas and emotional rhetoric. Above all, the book succeeds in putting Japans wartime policies and behaviour in the context of a conformist society under pressure. As one who grew up during the war I was in fifth grade when the war ended I can attest to the truth of this argument. The power of conformism, the ardent wish not to be different, a misguided sense of honour which dictates that dissent will disgrace the nation, the family, and yourself these traits still exist in Japan, and in many other countries, today. But the book suggests that there are others, those who are willing to speak candidly about the past, not merely among themselves but also with people from other lands. To the extent that Horror in the East reveals the existence of such people, the book points to the emergence of an international arena where memory and history may be shared and openly discussed, where what the author aptly refers to as a common thread transcending national or cultural differences may be found.


Professor Akira Iriye
Harvard University

INTRODUCTION I nscrutable that is the adjective most often used to describe - photo 3

INTRODUCTION

I nscrutable that is the adjective most often used to describe the Japanese. And on the face of it, what could be more inscrutable than their actions during the Second World War? Their attack on Pearl Harbor, their worship of their emperor as a God, their willingness to die in kamikaze attacks, their appalling treatment of Allied prisoners of war, their war crimes against women and children in China all these actions and more are hard, if not impossible, for Westerners to understand.

I fully expected to run into this concrete wall ofinscrutability in our quest to understand why the Japanese acted as they did during the war just as I had when, years before, I had asked an intelligent, sophisticated Japanese friend what she knew about the most infamous atrocity committed by the Imperial Army, the Nanking massacre of 1937. Ah, she replied, smiling, I did study history at school, but you must understand, Japanese history is many thousands of years old and very complex. Its a very, very big book we have to study. And, of course, we start at the beginning of the history and study hard and in detail. So, unfortunately, by the time I left school we hadnt finished the whole history....I think perhaps we stopped at the end of the nineteenth century. We just didnt get around to looking at the Nanking massacre.

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