Now I realized that what we learned in school is different from what people see from each country. I think it's important to realize the gap and have your own opinion. Do not rely on the only piece of information you got.
In Britain history is taught very Unbiased and rational. We have been both Tyrant's and the liberators many times in History. We have to be taught the Evil and the Good we have brought the world, it gives us a humble view of our United Kingdom. This is why we installed the Ideals of Freedom in America, All English Speaking Nations are Family. Australia, Canada, America and New Zealand are Britain's Children and we are eternally Thankful that they Remembered this in Our Darkest Hour, even though we did no deserve it, Our British Empire Reunited, The English Speaking World, when the World needed it the most. I Understand how this is seen as hypocritical, It was True Redemption in both World Wars. Sacrificing our Empire and the lives of our Young Men to save the Very people we had once Enslaved, To Defend the Soil of our Enemies. Japan should not be ashamed, Japan fought bravely and with Honor, just because they were Allied with Evil does not make them Evil themselves. They Deserved the Warrior's End that Britain Almost faced, America should not have tested the Bomb on Japan, They should have followed through with their plan and Bombed Russia. Lest we Forget
@Cegesh The same Reason America has a President. Neither have any power, just like with ancient Egypt, the Pharaohs were only Figure heads while the Military and Priesthoods held the power. In Europe it used to be the Church, in America it's the Deep State, unfortunately now they have moved into the Financial and Technology Sectors, Most notably the banking system and Social media Giants. Kings and Presidents mean nothing, follow where the real power lies because it's been perfected over thousands of years. American Independence is a good example, the British elites just moved from one Continent to another, but the people would no longer blindly follow Monarchs so they set in place a system that's offers the illusion of freedom while simultaneously eradicating it. It may have seemed like One Tyrant being replaced with Many in the guise of government, but in truth there is no difference at the core, only from the public eye did a change in power take place. When every single President except one is related to the Monarchy by blood, it's hard to believe the colonists were manipulated into killing their own kin. At least today all of Britain's children are stable and safe. Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
@Cegesh Look I get what your saying but I can already tell where this is going. Also anyone can Join the House of Lords, Anyone can become a Lord. It's not like Game of Thrones, it's not like getting a Knighthood, all you have to do is meet the Criteria, Own Land ect. If you wanna talk about stuff please be objective, leave your patriotism at the door. We all have Bias lenses and it's difficult to see past them, from the age of 5 we are sat behind a desk with an authority figure, telling us when we Eat, When we Speak, When we can go to the bathroom, its borderline impossible to shake this off and realise History is nothing but Backwards propaganda and lies but Brainwashed or not we can both admit that the people who control the Old World still Control the New one.
browndemon386 Theres no more statues of Hitler in Germany, why should we have statues of people who committed such violent atrocities such as the civil war and slavery? Don’t answer that, there’s not an answer.
Erasing history is scary to me, as humans are already forgetful and will most certainly repeat history, and I think chance to repeat goes up when you erase lessons of the past.
maybe because teachers also feel too much pressure to go into controversial topics. As a result students only learn about the numbers and the event's name. We didn't have a chance to learn the reason why.
@Ryan Martinson Germany and UK have become pretty self hating after they started to take countless foreigners into their country and recently there has been stories from usa that the teachers are worried that parents can hear what they teach to their children because of distance learning so that would explain that in my opinion.
@@IanMalcolm-rw5pn Well, the Japanese education system history was changed during US occupation with the focus on Japanese suffering because of the war. This was done in order to make a pacifist country which is what the US wanted.
@Ryan Martinson it took the US 30-40 years to admit what it did in Vietnam, it took Germany a freaking second world war to admit what it did in the first world war AND what it did in the second one with Japan, its a humiliation problem, the government is really not keen on having past events such as massacres being admitted to its people dont ask me why, im not a Japan expert
Nobody wants to face their own countries shame. As an American, i know this all to well. All we can do is learn from the past so that we don't repeat it.
As a fellow American, I agree. I was never a soldier or politician but we need to learn from our past and hold our political leaders responsible for their actions. The people are not in charge and we shouldn't have any kind of prejudice towards people from other countries just because of where they were born. Judge people based on their actions and character.
The hard thing about the US is that It seems the only great power that to this day still uses the tactics that haunts them. Like funding terrorists groups and subcidising drug production in all scales while sending firearms for everyone and making a perpetual war on drugs and terror caused by them. Also the whole instituitionalized racism thing.
@@dinamosflams agree with the first point, not so much with the second. "Institutionalized" would imply that it's written down in law or policy. I'd argue the U.S. compared to any other countries are the most diverse and inclusive which is actually written down in law and policy such as the IDEA act under Bush, Affirmative Action or Diversity Quotas set by the federal government for schools or companies to get subsidies or tax breaks.
My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked & fought in a number of battles in the Pacific Theater. Honestly he never could find forgiveness for Japan after what he witnessed & experienced but he did see how much your country changed in his later years & this certainly lightened his view seeing the incredible change. I think if he was still alive he would have found forgiveness. It is hard for any soldier when they see their friends die at the hands of another.
Nice words, thanks for it. One of my Grandfathers was on the easter front... he went POW to the soviets. He survied it. But he never ever talked bout the war or the Prison. The only thing what i once said was "What we did to them, was unforgiving. I hope they will forgive germany once. Whatever they did to me, it was right. Because we tried to kill them all." He was a broken man after the war. I was a child there and didnt understand. But now? Now as a german i say the famous proverb! NEVER AGAIN!
My grandfather fought on iwo jima he lost his two brothers his oldest brother and his 2 oldest brother he loved them so much but they were killed from a motar it hit them were they laying at with the machine gun they both died on iwo jima my grandpa was mad he was depressed he became an alcoholic person and racist person but he saw the world changing like how your grandpa was he died in 2019 he was 99
Something I want to say in regards to when you say things like, "We killed a lot of people." and other similar statements. No *you* didn't. You weren't alive when this happened, these actions were not yours nor that of any other Japanese who came afterwards. They may be in the national history but they are not your crimes they belong to those who committed them. This is why I tend to have a problem with apologies being demanded decades later from those who had nothing to do with an event. Any glossing over of history is not your fault, it's the fault of those attempting to downplay or divert from the worst of what happened. Ignoring history doesn't make it go away, so the fact that you aren't ignoring or hiding from this admittedly dark place in Japan's past is something to be commended for. Never ignore history, the good and the bad. It's how we become better people for it.
I agree with most of that. But there are still government or politicans that active today tryiing to how hide what the Japanese army did back then. Or even as an American, I am ashame of misconducts (rape and harrassment) by our US soldiers that happened over the decades since US occupied Japan at the end of the war. Bad things are still happening; there are still bad people out there even if they are not as many cases as when we were all at war.
Apologies keep getting demanded because they never apologize. It keeps getting passed down the generations because the former refused to apologize. It is Japaneses' own fault for kicking the can down the road, hoping it will go away. Their first so called "apology" came in the 1970s. That's decades after the war! And even then, each time they carefully word their 'apology' to sound like an apology when translated to English, but in original Japanese wording it really isn't or is muddied. Very sly. That's why it persists.
@@jcarlovitch We've done a lot of messed up shit! Most countries have. Nothing wrong with truth. It's when you act like we're the only ones to do screwed up stuff, and everybody else is innocent, that I have a problem!!
There's only such much time any teacher has to teach a given curriculum. People need to learn things on their own, otherwise they're going to be at school 24 hours a day.
In the US I was basically taught that America won the war, this was in the 60's and 70's. It wasn't until I went to college that I learned about just how much of the European war was fought by Russia and the terrible price they paid. As an aside, once one side starts killing civilians wholesale it would be unrealistic to not expect the other side to respond in kind. Part of that is to destroy the enemy's ability to make war, i.e. industrial facilities.
The US didn't pay the blood toll that the Soviet Union did, that said with out the Lend-Lease program the Soviet's would have either lost or been completely decimated even worse then they were. Many people focus on the military equipment that was sent, but the real deciding factor of Lend-Lease was the non-combat supplies like train engines and rolling stock, as well as food. Without it the Soviet Union would have been hard pressed to maintain their industrial base that was almost completely dedicated to military equipment. That is why the US was considered the Arsenal of democracy.
We didn't lose as many people because we actually cared about our soldiers. We fought hard but we fought smart. Mass wave assault doctrines of Russia caused the deaths of millions as much as the Germans gunning them down were. It was a political strategy by Stalin, he sent the rural soldiers first and the communists last. This was to give him better control over a post war Soviet Union. It worked, too.
@@sid2112 It's not that simple. Russian here, and basically what was so different with the Eastern Front, was not only the absolute disregard for human life by the Soviet leadership, which I'm in no way denying, but the Germans acted differently too. It was Lebensraum, the ideological goal of Germany was to exterminate and enslave the Slavic population, which they looked upon with almost as much disgust as the Jews, not even talking about the fear of communism. This resulted in a different kind of war, a war of extermination, which was not the case on the Western Front. Apart from that, defending Russia was not that easy, as most of it's European part is located on the European planes, you have few major rivers that you have to cross and can't just go around (like Rhine in the west), no mountain chains (like the Alpes, or smaller hilly areas like the Ardennes forest), instead you just have thousands of kilometers of mud and fields, quite hard to defend, this lack of defensive geography led also to large encirclements and many soldiers being taken POW, or, as was the case often in the East, just killed on the spot. Most of the deaths occured in 1941-1943, when the Soviet Union struggled to get the upper hand against a more technologically advanced enemy with superior tactics, occupying the part of the country with the most production output and a big percentage of the population. Also, Germany didn't focus as much on the UK and Germany, all thoroughout the war, most of it's troops were in the East, and even during the last months of the war, Soviets met more resistance from the Germans, as the Nazis preferred to be taken by the allies to what would happen to them when the Soviets, who lost millions of their family members, brothers in arms and countrymen would do to them. And we saw the amounts of warcrimes and particularly rapes that occured in occupied East Germany, not denying that. I'm not downplaying the role of Stalin and the Soviet leadership in those deaths (both Soviet and those occuring because of the Soviet warcrimes) either, just pointing out that it's not really fair to compare the Eastern and Western fronts. And disregarding what happend in the East as just "failure of the commanding staff" is outright disrespectful and ignorant
@@macanaeh I agree in part, except for the lessons learned in North Africa freely made available to Soviet lesdership. Open land engagement tactics had been matured and that maturity lent to Soviet command at the time. As far as a different war, yes absolutely. Extermination was the goal on both sides for similar ideological reasons. Either way, the Eastern European states were going to have a bad time. Examples of this include things like the Holodomor and the Great Purge, pogroms initiated and encouraged by both sides based on ideology and race. It was a bad time for everyone no doubt about it. And as far as it not being so bad for the people of Western Europe this is also true. When US or British forces liberated a town, the people understood the good guys had arrived. Not so much in the eastern front.
xGoodOldSmurfehx Discounting the wisdom that got them into power is denying history. What you’re projecting is that ‘perfect’ people exist; Stalin was a paranoid, murderous tyrant, but you can’t get to where he is without being intelligent. Being intelligent enough to differentiate between what qualities of a person are worth learning from is an important tool in life. Aside from that, without the atrocities that Stalin committed, we could not learn how to prevent and identify those atrocities. We wouldn’t be able to detect earthquakes without having dealt with devastating ones in the past.
As a Korean, I don't blame japanese people for not knowing the crimes that their country has committed. It's the fault of japanese politicians and educational system that doesn't teach this topics. It seems that most japanese people aren't aware of the fact that it isn't only Chinese and Koreans that were victims of the Imperialist Japan. Japanese people were victims too. In 2nd world war japan was an ally of Nazi Germany. We all know how that ended. A lot of innocent people died in a horrible way because of the actions taken by corrupt, innocent people killing government. It's okay to have pride of your country, but it's not okay changing history and facts because of that pride (I'm looking at you mr Abe). History can't be changed. But it's important to learn it in order to not make the same mistakes again.
it’s the same thing in Belgium we learn almost nothing about the atrocity committed in the congo, we just know that it was a "private property" of king leopold and that he bequeathed it to Belgium in 1908.
Reading the entries of Japanese soldiers fighting in the pacific theater going from patriotic and proud to serve their emperor to being bitter and betrayed made realize something: This shit should be shared with Japanese citizens. That and the accounts of Japanese forces in China and other east Asian countries because it's really hard to pretend something isn't real when it's actual people's reports and entries staring you in the face (and not a textbook blurb).
@@ErwinBlonk hell it took a vietnam doucumentary series where they interviewed former us generals and vietcong members to even understand why the US was there. (100% Frances fault) Every country does its best to hide its shady shit from the history books.
I've seen quite a few documentaries on WW2,but this video is one of the most informative.Mostly,because it's so visually shocking,and clearly points out the millions of victims from each particular country.The first time most people see this,they're in absolute shock with how many were killed in Russia!😳
As a European and a historian I salute you. Your opinion and an open mind are something very important if we want this world to become a better place. Just: you did not kill anyone. It was not your fault. Not the fault of most of the people living today. We should not ignore the dark history of our countries but we should accept it as it was. A history. An opportunity to learn from the mistakes of those before us. The fact you are not afraid to face history and are willing to learn from it makes you a great person. I wish there would be more people like you. Cheers
In America it is generally called The Rape of Nanking (or Nanjing as you would call it). Look into the history of Unit 731 as well. In many ways worse than the Rape of Nanking. Ultimately no country is free from blame when it comes to atrocities. I try to remain optimistic, that we are smarter than we were 70 years ago and such things are less likely to happen again, but I'm not sure that is even realistic. Peace be with you friend.
@@alukuhito karma doesn't exist. I don't see evil people being punished by karma. Fantasy and reality are two very different things. Communists who have caused death and torture to my ancestors during the 70s is still doing fine from what I can see.
@@khalee95 Karma just means for every action there is a reaction. Whether you see a result or not doesn't make a difference. You don't know the totality of the universe. You don't know how any action's reaction will come. Just because you don't see something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or won't come later.
everyone has blood on their hands...its hard to cast stones on anyone else without being a hypocrite..but yes like the holocast the rape of nanking the horrors of units like 731 and others plus the march were a bit extreme genocides basically and crimes against humanity....war is hell but japan made sure to take out their little man syndrome against big brother china extra hard out of pent up anger for the bigger nations and the fact they knew they could not win even 1/3 of china land and maintain it..
As a polish guy I was shocked that almost a fifth of my countries population was killed, I knew the losses were drastic, but I did not know to what extent ultimately.
@peter schwarz unfortunately there are almost no innocent questions, and people will always infer something from them about the person asking. However your questions appear much less than innocent; if they were genuine then you wouldn't be asking the youtube comment section now would you? I certainly don't claim to be a historian knowledgeable all about the holocaust, you're free to look it up on google. Although knowing your type you would try to claim my not answering your questions as a win.
My wife is Japanese and I find myself informing and correcting her about a lot of things in world history, particularly when it comes to Japanese history. Thanks for the video. Most Japanese people don't want to look into what actually happened, just as Americans don't like to look into some of the ugly parts of our past.
@@Conn30Mtenor karma does not exist my friend. Its a concept you like to believe in so that you feel you have some control over the world and how you experience it, when in reality you don't.
@Michelle-bm5pg It's called consequences not karma also the reasoning you provided has nothing to do with the wars mentioned earlier. It's just happened that USA has fairly open immigration policy and has rich economy. It's just surrounded by a lot of "poor" countries. If we look at Russia they did some insane atrocities, had a lot of wars but no one want's to live there because it's a shithole. Karma is literally not a thing
yep. heroism was strong. It has a reason why russians call it the patriotic war. Sadly many dont recognize that. many soldiers / villagers diddnt even wanted to retreat at some points of the battle when stalin ordered it.
@@semiramisubw4864 Are you for real?! "Stalin ordering soldiers and villagers to fall back, but they refused" are you some kind of a moron, or are you trolling? It was under *DIRECT ORDERS OF STALIN* that civilians were forbidden to evacuate from endangered areas and cities. Official reasoning being "to motivate the Soviet soldiers to fight harder" to save them. While front units were explicitly forbidden to retreat under any circumstances. If any unit got overwhelmed and retreated in the best case scenario its commander was executed, in the worst all of them would be either killed, or end up in Penal Battalions - having the "privilege and honor" to lead any future suicidal attacks. There were also those "funky" units introduced on Stalin's order called "Blocking Battalions" their role was very simple - block/prevent the retreat of Soviet units through "expenditure of ammunition" = they were shooting their own troops if they witnessed them retreat, or "not advance enthusiastically enough". Stalin himself was quoted saying *"In the Red Army it takes more courage to retreat than to attack"* .It is orders like that that explain the number of the Soviet casualties - it is often estimated that if not for Stalin and his policies at least 2/3 of total Soviet WW2 casualties could have been easily avoided. *2/3!* = almost 70% f**g percent of over 20 million dead! Go and learn something on the subject first before you say something.
@@ErwinBlonk I wasn't certain what you wanted to achieve by bringing the Belgian Army to the discussion, so I asked for clarification - a very visible question mark at the end of "Are you actually defending Stalin?" indicates a question, not a "conclusion". "So let me explain in the way you can't misinterpret": Don't bring - "yeah but (insert here) wasn't the first to do (insert here), he just did more of it" if your intention is to condemn someone, because it looks suspiciously like arguing in defense of someone's actions. The OP in the comment said ~ "Stalin was ordering soldiers and civilians to retreat, but they refused" which is a *LIE* that needed correcting. I didn't say Stalin was the first, nor being the first, second, third, eleventh would make any difference to my argument - Stalin didn't order anyone to evacuate and couldn't care less for the number of dead, on the contrary, he did his utmost to make retreat a more deadly choice for anyone than a suicidal advance. I have no beef with you, just the liar to whom I replied.
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All of my family is from the former soviet union, as they were one of the first to witness the Nazis invading their homeland in 1941. My great-grandfather was just in, I think 3rd or 5th grade when the Germans invaded. He was never able to finish school but I am glad he was able to survive and live to this day (he's currently still alive.) My great grandmother had to flee her home in order to survive the war. She hid documents of the house she owned and hid them underground (she dug those up after the war to later have to prove that she owned the property she fled from because somebody else took the house from her.) Than we have my great uncle, he survived the war but his wife did not. His story is very sad because when he lost his wife he was struck with so much grief that he never tried or even attempted to date or marry any women again. My great uncle lost his wife in the Siege of Leningrad. A long and bloody siege, lasted for 872 days. He lived until the late 1990's, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, would of died alone as well but my grandparents visited time to time and were there when he past on. He even had a calming smile on his face in his last moments knowing at least someone was there for him in the end. Nothing beats family being there for you. This message isn't intended to make someone's day bleak. If you have read this message, thanks for taking the time out of your day to listen to some of my families history. Have a pleasant rest of the day. - Hybrid
“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana and there was a follow up: That’s the thing, though. None of us have forgotten. Darned if we’re not repeating it anyway...
I find it sad that the Japanese school system still refuses to teach much of the horror of the Imperial Army and what they did, I feel everyone should know their own history the good, the bad, and the ugly.
@Clone Rayne lmao that's not how it ever worked historically, nor how it works currently. The winner decides what war crimes are and how the criminals are punished.
@Clone Rayne The OT contains genocide warfare, and Krishna wiped out an entire forest in the Mahabharata, displacing it's inhabitants lmao. "...after the first Geneva Convention." Speaking of things that mattered less, the GC is it. Global hegemons do not abide by it. War crime charges are for the little guys, mouthbreather. You have an idiotic understanding of warfare, politics, and history.
@Clone Rayne I'm quite familiar with those two books, more so than you are. Deuteronomy and Numbers, for instance, both narrate wholesale destruction of peoples as a prescriptive measure. "during this time said rules of war were only really applicable to those of the same religion as you, but they were internationally accepted (as in between two or more nations accepted) rules of war." I'm not even sure how you can square these two clauses together. Contradictory mess. Moreover, they were not universally accepted between nations. You need to provide evidence for such from Ancient Near Eastern sources (your cited Deuteronomic texts argue against your thesis). "but the point is, laws of war have existed for a long time, and breaking them is a war crime." If anything, they were an internal matter, not some grandiose normative, ethical issue between nation states. "It doesn't matter at all if every single nation or individual abides by them..." Hegemonic powers don't care, dude, lol. "You're perhaps the least educated individual regarding war crimes and history in general..." Cites OT siege warfare, thinking it supports his argument, lmao. "...because you took a single history course at community college..." Incorrect, didn't take a single history course for my post-secondary education. Additionally, is there something wrong with community college? Is it not academic enough for your elite status?
The big Questions to ask is why, that's nobody as ask. As to why terrible wars happen in the first place. Have the world nation learnt from them. WW1 was a terrible war to end all wars. It should have ended all was after it. But it didn't, there about a 21 year gap between WW1 and WW2. WW2 is connected TO WW1. 🙄
I think the Japanese (and all others) can learn from the Germans about how to admit past sins and atrocities with self-respect and integrity without losing face or pride. Tell it as it was from as many viewpoints as possible. The good and the bad. The truth. And remember that past sins of the parents are not sins of their children, current or future generations. Respect for talking about this, Yuya 🙏
Not so much a fan of people being beaten over the head with guilt they themselves did not partake in. People should be educated on what their nation has done, certainly, but don’t best people with a stick labelled “guilt”, that’s not a good way to teach a nations history, no matter how terrible the act it committed in history.
Interesting to always have a perspective from someone who comes from one of the Axis nations in WW2. Good video, I recommend checking out Oversimplified's WW1 and WW2 history.
This oversimplyfied videos are bullshit.......they use stereotypes and not the truth.......Saddam-Hussein-Oversimplyfied would tell you, that Saddam would have weapons of mass-destruction.....we all know, this is a lie....so is the oversimplyfied for WW1 and WW2.
@@o_o8684 .....my comment is a reaction to Zexal42 initial comment refering to "oversimplified WW1 and WW2". This oversimplyfied stories are orientated on the official story from the allies which are mainly lies.
We are such close allies now. The war will hopefully never be forgotten, but our peoples have grown so close. The USA and Japan have a strong future together, I just hope we can come together here in the USA and remember what really matters.
Is Japan really an true ally. Or better put it. Is US an true ally to Japan? As far as I know both Japan and Germany have different restrictions on their military, what they can have and what not. That is not an ally, that is an vassal/slave state in some meaning.
Oh Yeah? The United States has completely controlled the economy and army of Japan since the end of World War II, and also has military bases in Japan. A vassal cannot be an ally, Japan is still under US occupation and this is a fact.
Oh Yeah? It will remain as long as the USA Armed Forces will control the Japanese army, the USA military bases will be located in Japan, and the economic institutions of the USA government will control the Japanese economy. Until Japan actually becomes a sovereign state again, and not will be just another country controlled by the USA empire.
Very interesting seeing from a Japanese perspective. Here in Indonesia we have a saying that roughly translates to "3 and a half years of Japanese occupation was worse than 350 years of Dutch oppression/occupation". Genocides and Sex slavery. I can see why the Japanese government would try to not mention them too much.
Stanley Leonard Darmali Many Indonesians are completely unaware that Japanese soldiers were cooperating and died for in the Indonesian National Revolution.It’s poor people.
My Grandfather was a Japanese-American in the 442nd. Because of this, my father has a great appreciation of history, especially about WW2. In addition, there was this old lady who was a concentration camp survivor who would hold an event every year in the church next to my middle school where she would tell her story. She was lucky, even though she had to suffer and become separated from her family, moving across several camps, because she was eventually tasked with peeling carrots and other such tasks, and would eat the shavings to live, and eventually, make it out alive. I asked for her signature, and I still have it. She was in very old age at the time, and I wanted to remember her and her story. What we really need to take away from this is that almost every country has blood on its hands, and has done something wrong at the expense of another country. Rather than hide it for the sake of hollow pride and nationalism, we should teach these grave, horrible mistakes in schools so that the younger generations never make the same mistakes in the future. Learning about the event from the other point of view shows the things that may be brushed aside in what they teach you in schools.
Very interesting to see this from a japanese perspective! In Germany we were taught quite a bit about it in school but mostly about the european theatre and especially the holocaust. Later on i also found out about my families involvement in the war by finding some old letters etc.
people say that, but hitler could have been put down if the league of nations did its job and invaded germany when germany had all of its forces invading poland. France could have mounted a full scale invasion of germany and hurt them badly. But it was the cowards on the pilotical table that let hitler cause over 70 million deaths from the total war. rolling over and showing your belly for "Peace" never works. people forget what led up to ww2 and how it could have been prevented in a smaller war. China and japan also exist and had lots of deaths. but at least in europe it could have been stopped way earlier.
One of my most profound life experiences was training, and later enjoying liberty with, JGSDF personnel. Here this man sits in front of me, my friend and ally, just a few generations back our grandfathers were trying to kill each other. We had immense respect for each other and never even thought of WW2. So much has changed. I would proudly fight with the JGSDF today, and many of my family (pacific vets) died decades later hating them.
It's funny how in any WWII video that even mentions the USSR and the blood they spilt alongside the other Allies in fighting against the Axis, people with self-righteous black-and-white views of history start crawling out the woodwork to try and discredit their sacrifice.
Yes, as evil as the Soviet Union was we cannot forget about the blood they spilt. Without any one of the 3 major allied nations (US, UK, USSR) the war couldn’t have been won by the allies. America didn’t win the war. The good men and women of all allied nations who fought and worked in the factories to battle evil won. *Together.*
@@brotherhoodofsteeld.c.chap1917 I agree. I have seen a quote something along the lines of 'The UK bought the time, The USA shared the resources, The USSR spilt the blood'. Very simplified but there is truth in it too, however it does miss out the not insignificant roles played in the European theatre by many other nations. But the losses by the USSR are truly horrific compared to anyone else. Love from the UK
@@Davey-Boyd That is why May 9 is one of the main holidays in Russia. New Year and Christmas are already in the background. Our grandfathers and fathers made a toast after the war, so that there would be no war, because they went through this hell and survived.
As someone of Chinese descent but along with my parents was born and raised in a western nation I take a more external look to the current relations the Asian nations have. I'd like nothing more than to see them all reconcile and move forward for mutual benefit and prosperity - but view the inability for Japan's government and higher authorities to clamp down on denial, acknowledge events and show consistency of remorse to be done of their biggest challenges. Followed finally by teaching their future generations what has happened in the past - not to humiliate or shame but to inform and grow so as to give them the best chance to not see them repeat such actions again. As many have mentioned, Germany is a prime example of a nation and people who have been able to mend deep wounds with old enemies and form new and positive relationships with each other with a goal of moving forward to create a better future outcome.
We can all come together and collectively learn from our past so that we can collectively grow! This is an amazing video man! Sending love from the UK!
On the concentration camp apparently the Russian reaction to overrunning one while guards were still there was so bad it was officially stricken from the record what the soldiers did to the guards once they saw the prisoners.
My grandfather is japanese as well as my grandmother but she was only half. Mori clan. My generation makes me only a quarter Japanese but speak some Japanese. I learned about the history of ww2 but I tend to shy away from the subject when it's brought up. It's good to learn from past mistakes so we do not repeat it again. Lots of people lost their lifes on all sides and this was truly a world War more than the 1st ww. Because almost every where in the world was touched by the war. Its reach knows no bounds. Truly horrific
(U.S.) My teacher in High School was very proactive about informing us about things not heavily covered or skipped in class. So luckily I didnt get taught with a narrow minded view. But these visuals are amazingly informative. I wish this gets put in every School across the world
Hi Yuya, I hadn't seen this video and I enjoyed feeling like I was watching it together with you. I enjoy your genuine reactions and thoughts and I am happy I found your channel. Don't worry about not remembering things from school! I think people forget things they learned in school if they don't use them after. I'm actually impressed that you seem to remember so much!
As a German and a former German soldier I still get goosebumps when I hear the word "Stalingrad", even when I just think of it. My family and my village lost a lot of young men in that war and espacially in Russia/Soviet Union. I hope such things will never happen again and I really hope the Russians think the same. For Americans the war was about industrial capacities, for continental Europe it was about if or if not your country, your city, your village, your family gets to be wiped out.
My late father was a captain in the Chinese Army and after the war became a career diplomat. He taught me that although it is difficult to forget what the Japanese did in WW2, he forgives them. My relatives and I largely forgives them too and my late mom who graduated with full scholarship in an American College had a Japanese schoolmate. Her friend profusely apologized for the war since they were taught that China belongs to them but after the war, they found that it was a lie. They maintained their friendship after they both graduated and even with her friend going back to Japan. I say the road to peace is always the best way to live and understand each other.
What they don’t mention in any of these videos is the extent, cruelty and creativity of the torture used in Japan on their POWs during WWII. It was so extreme that Japan earned the dubious reputation around the world for being the “best” at torture. When people in the modern world think of Japan during the war the two things that will probably come to mind is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the extreme torture of POWs. When I was a boy I used to know an old WWII vet that had all his fingers on his left hand cut off one knuckle at a time when he was a POW in Japan, he considered himself lucky compared to most. One example that stuck with me was when he told me about a friend of his who was staked to the ground and left for bamboo to grow through him, as if the pain of the bamboo slowly growing through your internal organs wasn’t bad enough, the smell of blood would eventually attract rats! long story short it took him days to die, seriously grimm stuff. Nightmare fuel really! I understand why they wouldn’t want to teach young kids about that in Japan, but I feel it’s important that it’s taught at some point near the end of their education. After all, those who don’t learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.
@Daisy Wong I'd say it's simple. Japan has largely been liberalised since the end of the war, and pose no threat to the local and global power structure. China on the other hand, is doing everything it can to destabilise all regions that border the country, has a god complex which has existed throughout its history, and is encroaching on the territory of other countries. It's about who keeps control, and I'd rather have the US in control than China.
peter schwarz that’s also very true, there’s no doubt the allies did terrible thing during the war also. but honestly, don’t you think how history is taught in Japan is at the very least, unusual? We are told that history is supposedly written by the victors.... but it would appear that’s only true if you’re not Japan, because when you are Japan (through use of “special pleading”, straight up denial and misplaced pride) reality can go take a long walk off a short pier! 😅😅 It feels like if they could get away with it, the Japanese government would tell its citizens that japan hardly even participated in WWII and that the bombing of Japan was entirely unprovoked! Surly that doesn’t seem right to anyone? Nobody likes to be lied to by their government, and the fault isn’t with the people! in all of the world I believe that Japanese culture and people are among the greatest! For the most part Japanese history and culture is nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful, it is ancient, technologically advanced, highly sophisticated, and wonderfully unique! But denying a stain exists or saying it’s not as bad as it is... who are those lies helping really?
lugiabossman come on! I wouldn’t go that far! 😅😅 putting the US in charge?! 😂😂😂 that’s just replacing a demon😈 with a devil👿! 😅😂😂 haven’t you seen what’s going on over there these days? It’s total a shit show! 😅😂😂 last time that country was this divided it ended with the American civil war! It’s lucky they don’t all have guns!... oh, wait, that’s right, they do!! 😂😂😂
peter schwarz you make a fair point, and I’m pretty sure a third attempt at global domination is fairly unlikely 😅, however at the time those policies were introduced the rest of the world decided that two attempts was already two attempts too many! Therefore extreme precautions were taken, and those policies are still in place. A contemporary example could be made with the BLM movement in America. It’s an extreme reaction that’s going way further than it should, but if there hadn’t been a history of systemic racism and oppression in America BLM wouldn’t have existed in the first place. In the end we reap what we sow, sometimes that means subsequent generations need to eat tainted bread 😢 Also I don’t think it’s about who’s still alive from that Time (though there are still a few) but more to do with who DIDN’T make it. My gran had 6 brothers, by the end of the war she only had one, he was too young to fight. My family would probably have been much larger today if not for WWII, so the effects are still with us today. As was mentioned in the video, peace is strange in that it’s measured by those who don’t die in wars that never happened 😅👌❤️✌️🤘🖖
Liberalization in terms of "you do what we want or next bomb will be on another city" UN is bunch of assholes they always was. When it comes to China with current government it would be just about same as if it was US. US politics is like "You do what i want or !"
its crazy cause in my school in Australia i never learned that much of both wars sure we learned some here and there but never any depth but by god did we learn about gallipoli
it is nice to see different perspectives within different countries, communities around the globe. " You can step forward but only if you learn where to place, your foot"-Me. i just came up with, but it shows that in the wider world, look you can't go forward without looking back upon the mistakes from you're self, others, other countries Aswell as your own. I'm a half breed, 48% Japanese, something like 20% American, a mad mix of many Eu countries. half of my family died during the two nukes dropped from the USA, ancestors for all intense and purposes, only because they have died before i could meet them. I live in America, I do my best to learn all the facts, i was blessed my great grandma lived long enough to be able to tell me the story of how she fell in love with a man from the USA marine corps weeks after the nukes had been dropped. For backstory, she went down to Hiroshima to see how much of her family had lived through it, her dad sent her away to the country knowing population centers where to be stricken with bombs, ect. she did not have news, tv, she did not foresee the devastation she was seeing when she arrived. only her cousin lived. she died in 2016... Anway's i know this is an old video, i just wanted to share some things because life is much to keep in the what the world may most want to hear. I have yet to watch all of this, I'm glad to say i know i have already learned something.
During my time at my high school we would often have an exchange student program, having some fine people from Nerima (considered our sister city), and for our curriculum we would learn about Australian POWs at Japanese camps, this was a very confronting lesson for us Australian students, and the Japanese exchange students would have to be warned about it, and were given the option to move out of the class for the duration if they felt uncomfortable at all. At the time it never occurred to me how heavily it could shock someone's understanding of their nation, however all the lads that came over for the exchange program were some of the best mates I've ever met.
idk if there is a video about it but one that you should look into reading about is the Japanese unit in WW2 known as Unit 731 and the twisted experiments they did. I love Japan but to me with loving a country and it's culture also means knowing their history and seeing the horrible acts they have committed in their history as just the past but still an important thing that should be learned in full regardless of how upsetting it would be to the status quo, I'm happy to see videos like yours where it is Japanese people pointing out what wasn't taught to them in school versus what was taught in different countries and how the victors see it because as the saying goes "History is Written by the Victors". From what I have read about the Sengoku Jedai and the samurai mentality that was still present during WW2 is that familial honor was a major factor to the point that to prevent them from throwing themselves at an enemy they had no chance at beating by that point in the war America had to drop the bombs otherwise they would have fought to the last person that could hold a weapon. just to reiterate, like the videos and hope to see more come across my feed, keep up the good work
I remember watching a little thing with modern japanese college students and I was shocked how little they knew about ww2 because it's such a big history topic in the US. It just goes to show how different countries focus their education
The most horrifying thing about the number of Soviet deaths is that it's still effecting Russia's population today. Every few generations the population drops because a whole generation never had children. Those people just aren't there to replace the people who die.
I'm German and in EVERY family you had people that were killed or crippled or disfigured in the war as a soldier. Even if they came from rural areas that had not much war going on in daily life. Both my grandfathers survived, both were POW, one in France the other in the East. (Both were not in the Nazi party BTW) I'm born 1974 and these people were around. (Not my grandfathers, but still). And you had MILLIONS of people coming in from the East that fled death, torture and rape and experienced it. After the war they were in the neighborhood, in your house. Because of shortage of housing it was mandatory to take people in. Other then the guilt that many or most Germans still have to this day, this death and devastation still runs in the collective and individual psyche. And that is all over Europe and I think this mindset and awe that is still present, when it comes to war, connects the Europeans, but even closer Germans with Russians, Poles and others from the East. I imagine I feel what they feel. Might sound strange, but it was SO major that it might have changed the genes. There is a darkness and depression around these peoples, that we share. But Soviets could cover this hurt with pride, while all Germans had was shame and guilt. Nie wieder Krieg!
Respect to you, sir. I am always surprised to see Japanese people (very highly educated country) being so clueless on WWII/Sino-Japanese war history. Like many here said, It's the politicians that affected how this piece of history is being taught and can't really blame the people for being naïve. The positive thing is, many Japanese foreign exchange students tend to welcome the information and strive to learn more when we discuss it in university.
what's most shocking to me is that all the comments are somehow from thoughtful, sane, and considerate people. Instead of the usual gang of angry shouting nationalists I expect to find on youtube
I really appreciate your silence when looking at the European death, most reaction videos start talking when they reach poland, they don't notice how bad it was for us..
in the UK we are taught about both world wars extensivelly, however i still did not realise the enormity of the soviet unions contribution until you see those icons stack u, it really hits deep
Thank you so much for being open, honest, and sharing your point of view. I wish more people could be like you. Able to update their ideas and beliefs based on new evidence.
I don't remember who said it, but there's a quote that goes something like this: "WW2 was won by British intelligence, American steel, and Soviet blood." As an American, all I knew was that Stalin was cruel to his own people. I only graduated from high school a few years ago, but it was around that time that I learned from my own research how many people the Soviets sacrificed and lost in the war. In the RUclips comments sections of people reacting to this video, I've seen Russian people say that in Russia, they still to this day find lots of corpses of WW2 vets in spring. The Russians deserve more respect.
The Russian people suffered greatly during the turn of the century, and still bear the scars. They are absolutely deserving of respect and prosperity. Hopefully they'll find it before this century is out.
I'm American but for some reason, some people brag about how it was because of America that the nazis were singlehandedly beat. Which couldn't be any more of a lie. Yes, we were crucial in some battles like the beaches but mostly America was a huge supplier for other nations. It was the Soviet Union that beat the nazis to a pulp after they were betrayed.
@@dudebruh8534 Considering what happened during WW1 and just coming out of a recession, war was not something we wanted to do. You also can't give credit to the soviets since they helped germany start ww2. Stalin was a monster who got everything he deserved.
@@BossesDream Well like it or not its history. After being betrayed they literally pushed the nazis back all the way on their eastern front to Germany. Also, they didn't start ww2 the nazis did. After Germany started invading countries (after declaring war on Britain/the English) they eventually fought to the Polish territory. Hitler didn't want to fight a two-front war so he made a deal with Stalin and promised to split 50 50 of Poland. This was after the war had already started so no, the Soviets didn't start ww2. But it is a possibility in another timeline if nazi Germany never became a thing then maybe Stalin would've never had made a move. The only reason he did so in the first place (I believe) was that he did have another entire regime backing him up.
@@BossesDream All soldiers don't represent their countries. You think the Russians wanted to die in the snow? A lot were forced in the military. So whether you like it or not the people who fought to end an evil deserve recignation. Even if they represented a lesser evil.
It's well known that the French resistance fought long and hard for their country. Unlike it's often depicted the people didn't roll over for the Germans.
Love the video. My mother is Japanese. You'd never know it.... I wish we had a lot of the Japanese customs here in the United States.... Maybe there wouldn't be so much division.
In the Philippines, we were taught of how horrific WW2 was for my country, from grade school up to college. Learning our history from a class, a book or from a museum is eye opening, but when I started to hear the stories of our grandparents, what they have gone through during the Japanese occupation, it just breaks my heart. And yet, we were never taught to hate the Japanese. They may be the aggressors, but they also paid a hefty price. Japan is the only country where nuclear bombs were used, in 2 cities, killing inocent civilians.
Yeah tons of Russians died it's nothing compared to any country that was involved in fights. They didn't really have like choice Stalin was cruel as fuck specially when he want something done he didn't care how much lives it would take. Some soldiers that tried to run where shot by officers on field, it's not like all of them want to be there.
@Feminized Men 2020 Some people say Japan didn't surrender cause of the bombs but because Russia declared war on them. They seemed to had had bad experiences fighting Russia. I'm no historian, I don't know what to believe. But 2 cities disappearing while you blink seem scary enough :P
@@Lokitoh I think power of atom bomb must be scary enough for you to stop doing anything specially if you are leading your nation in war and you know that if you are not going to stop your peoples will be wiped anyway this was the power that they didn't posses at the moment and know it would be catastrophic if they will continue, if Russia told them they will start fight with them too it was just another reason to stop.
@@thechosenone729 actually at that time almost every city in japan was bombed and ruined and there was no big targets to bomb. Bombing didnt care them. But land invasion means a lot of death and losing land, that is why they were scared of USSR. Also USA bombed Vietnam, Afganistan, Iraq, (not atomic) many other and it never made them surrender, only land invasion can finish war.
@@ysakunov Bullshit A bombs alone killed around 200,000 The soviets invaded the same day the first bomb was dropped aug 9 1945 and the japanese surrenders less than a week later. No one had seen what an atomic bomb can really do before then, after seeing everything within a mile radius completely destroyed they knew they had no chance.
I'm 57 my grand parents, great grand parents fought 1st and 2nd wars,I was raised to hate them.but getting older meetings of these peoples, they very nice 👍 and I've forgotten the hatreds I grew up with.there hope,love and understanding within us God bless everybody
1:47 The term 'rape' was used several times but it is best known in the book "The Rape of Nanking" by the American Historian Iris Chang. It is considered one of the best books on the subject of the atrocities that occurred in Nanking.
What always bothers me is that the presenter always describes it as "good" that "only" poor countries fight each other and not the rich ones. That is a pretty hypocritical standpoint in my point of view. Poor countries whose people are already suffering from hunger, poverty, and other things use the bit of money they got to wage war...
Regarding how world war 2 is taught in Japan: Playing the Victim | Historical Revisionism and Japan by Knowing Better is a video I´d very much like to hear your thoughts on.
First I admit that we did many inhumane act. Meaningless killing. No excuse for that. Likewise there were many innocent japanese citizens killed during the war. Can't I say they were also victims? There are many sides of stories. Bright side and dark side. Personally I just think we should teach both sides of story to make our young generation know more and better than we do. Also I admit some politics are trying to hide the dark side. That's what we grown up have to work on
@@YuyaNipponess You don´t have to take responsibility like that, my friend. I´m German myself and have relatives who were either murdered or forced to flee by the Soviet Army in 1945 or who have died in the bombing of Dresden. They were civilians, having no participation in the war whatsoever. I think that is one of the cruelest things about war, that there are innocent victims on both sides. However, the aftermath of WW2 and how it is treated today seems vastly different in Germany and Japan, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on the topic. I didn´t mean for my comment to come across as an accusation, demanding an apology. Have a great day!
@石川俊也 His critic on how WW2 is thaught and generally handeled in Japan is just that, critic. Just because he says something you don't like to hear doesn't make it hate-speech. Or perhaps you could point me one example where he "spreads racial hate and bias against Japanese"?
I want to share my grandfather's story. Hungary mostly wanted to remain neutral but due to proximity really had no chance to evade Nazi Germany's political gravity, a prime minister even committed suicide when left with no choice. As puppet had to partake on Eastern front against Soviets. We were preparing and finalising a separate peace with east and west, but learning about this the nazis occupied us. My grandfather was a well liked butcher in our town (60km west of Budapest). Got drafted into the military. An officer friend helped arrange that he could remain home as an anti air serviceman, instead of being taken to the bloodiest eastern front. Eventually the soviets occupied Hungary. Our town was occupied back and forth numerous times by nazi and soviet forces. He did what he could to to hide, not just himself but others. He was captured by soviets. Taken by train to east, possibly to gulag. But at entering a counting station, when lining them up for processing he begged the guard to let him take a dump. He went to bushes and crouched, second later sprinted as fast as he could and got away. The officer friend once said to him if ever gets captured he should walk 1 km parallel by the highway back home, which he did. He was one of the luckier survivors of the time, let's say due to positive karma. He helped jews hide during nazi reign. In our street soviets shot at wall random 12 civilians, from this for an orphan he acted as father. He said that big proportion of soviet troops were war torn, even feeble. And that amongst nazis he saw the most frighteningly efficient cold ones. Later during soviet rule's communism our family house of generations was taken by state. In December this year will be the 10th year he passed away at 92. He was always tried to be positive, humble, never meaning to hurt anyone and for me was the role model of simple goodness. I miss him.
I'm from the US and our schools can vary greatly in what they teach depending on which state you live in. We also have a lot of propaganda about how we conducted ourselves. In most situations the Americans are painted as the good guys. So Japan is definitely not alone in teaching their youth an altered version of events. I'd be interested to see your reactions to both Unit 731 and the US internment of ethnic Japanese.
ww2 is my favorite subject and from what we’re taught Japan wanted to expand its empire but had no natural resources and America didn’t like what Japan was doing so they put stoped selling Japan oil or tried to make it harder for Japan to get the natural recourses threw embargo’s. So Japan attacked Pearl Harbor thinking if they could destroy the us navy fleet we’d be scared and sign some sort of treaty to keep giving them oil and stuff and the one thing that makes it so bad is Japan sent over an ambassador that day or the day before to have a conversation about lifting the embargo’s and not wanting to go to war so that was a slap in the face. That’s what I know about that idk if they teach you that at all but that was the past that wasent are fight or are war so all we can do is morn those who were lost and condemn the war crimes on all sides and strive to be better side by side as friends and not enemy’s
I wish there are some reasons/ excuses for the attack. Some country have a big land, some have big population, some have natural resources. We made a choice over the complicated background. That was the price of "Trying to be strong Japan". And it was not the best choice...
@@YuyaNipponess Peace takes more strength than war! (but the spoils of peace are harder to contextualize. Like in this video, the author says peace can be measured in the living population) Thank you for your reaction video, it was very informative to watch.
I don't think that the japanese high command were so inept to think that by sinking 3rd of the us fleet they will get something. More likely they wanted to postpone the inevitable, the US were starving them of resources and by sinking the pacific fleet they tried to buy time to extract resources from elsewhere.
In American textbooks we don't refer to what we did to American Indians or to Japanese-American citizens as crimes either (and often glaze over or don't mention them at all). Countries will almost never accept responsibility for their own atrocities.
Exactly, in almost every textbook I've ever seen what was done to the millions of natives is glossed over or the acts glorified in some way. Things like what was done to Chinese workers brought over to work on railroads is barely touched on (if at all), slavery is CONSTANTLY diminished and depending on what state you live in, actively ignored. Good luck learning what was done to Hawaii, the BS we pulled to start the Spanish-American War, the actual fucked up things we did because our internalization of the Monroe Doctrine. Nope, we are heroes, the shining city on the hill.
@Gunter Ringgenberg Taking an honest account of disrespect, violence, exploitation, and abuse our country in isn't hating America. The very fact that many people here at home jump to this self-defensive nonsense is part of the problem. And it's a symptom of being pumped half-truths and jingoism in history class.
@@Michelle-rdz17 Yeah, the fact that we hold the fucking events at the Alamo as some sort of honorable, heroic last stand is insane when you actually look into it.
I admire your quest for knowledge and truth. All country's tend to try to paint their own history to make themselves look better. So you are correct in trying to get multiple points of view. I wish more people every where would take the time you are, to learn more history. I think the more we know about world history the less likely we are to commit the same mistakes from the past.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific theatre of WW2. I recall when we were younger, he used to tell us stories about his experiences fighting with the Japanese in occupied Philippines (they where cut off and had to wage guerilla warfare) including how brutal they where to POWs and civilians. Even babies and pregnant women where killed by the Japanese soldiers in horrifying ways that it took me a long time to grasp and make sense of it all. Do i hate the Japanese today? Of course not. Most alive today weren't involved in that conflict. My only disappointment is how the Japanese government downplays their warcrimes and never sincerely apologized and admitted their mistakes. I remember hearing about a Japanese WW2 veteran, i think his name was Shiro Azuma, who felt deep guilt about his participation in the Nanjing Massacre. You may want to look into how the Japanese government felt about and what they did for his open confession to war crimes.
Exactly. I don’t hate the Japanese. But the government is wrong in down playing it. They have been... “civilized” (Ik that’s a horrible thing to say but I don’t have any other word) by the US. They expected us to rape and murder them like they did to everyone else. But we showed them grace, honor, and mercy. They learned and accepted those ideals. Now they are a peaceful people somewhat enlightened by the US, and rebuilt by said nation. And that is why we should never hate the modern people of all those axis nations. Because it’s not their fault. We can only call out their government when they deny and downplay the facts. Forgive but never forget.
the moral lesson to learn from your experience in learning history from a broader angle is this one simple golden rule: history is written by the victors and its details are always buried with the losers this is why you never learned about certain events or the numbers in Japan; a by product of after-war humiliation, the Japanese government was probably too humiliated with the facts to let the people of Japan know about such atrocities now lets put some context on this: its 1945, Japan just got two of its major cities flatten by 2 atomic bombs and thus has surrendered and the US has taken charge of the political system, you dont want people to riot over certain things and humiliating the old imperial government with such facts as numbers might just cause much instability and you as the new government cant afford to have people question the new authority if the country is to be quickly and steadily rebuilt i dont think that the fact people in Japan dont learn about numbers is malevolent, i think its simply an old obsolete by product of the after-war policies and i sincerely think its way overdue to be changed as i understand that Japan has many strict regulations in all aspects of life and people there are more often than not very law-abiding even if it means some things are improperly done as a consequence everybody deserves to know the truth of history, thats my motto
None of us really learned this way. Discrepancies in the way the history was taught aside, RUclips has become a blessing because we have videos like this that will go into detail in creative ways. The key is to make sure your source is trust worthy, impartial, and educated.
All countries teach their own history very carefully. In the US, it is taught that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan ended the war and were necessary to prevent huge casualties that would result from an invasion of Japan. This is not true. Examination of primary sources from the time reveal that the US 1.) rejected peace treaties offered by Japan 2.) understood Japan was not capable of waging further war, especially considering Japan's depleted fuel reserves 3.) purposefully selected city targets for atomic bombing based on size (both physical layout and population size) and lack of cultural significance (Kyoto was excluded for this reason) - military significance was not considered 3.) timed the bombings to coincide with the Russian invasion of Japan in order to force Japan to surrender and therefore avoid splitting the occupation of Japan with the Russians (the Russian invasion commenced between the two bombings) 4.) did not adequately warn the civiilan populations of the impending bombings 5.) understood the impact the bombs would have on the civilian population including long term radiation effects. The contemporary estimates of US casualties of an invasion of Japan were in the tens of thousands, not the milliions that are now often cited as the official estimate drawn from a speech by Truman (which has no known source). We all must carefully examine and be critical of how we were taught history within our own countries. We must be kind to our comrades from other countries. Thank you for this brave video.
@Half life 3 "No scholar of the war has ever found archival evidence to substantiate claims that Truman expected anything close to a million casualties, or even that such large numbers were conceivable" I spent 4 years studying the decision to drop the bombs. I can tell you, without a doubt, that civilian targets were specifically designated, a war crime and a crime against humanity. The combined weight of the USSR and American army would have crushed the war weary, resource deleted mainland easily. In fact, the real reason Japan surrendered was likely less due to the bombings rather than the fact that the USSR cut a path through nearly all of occupied Manchuria in a matter of hours when they invaded with over 1.5 million soldiers on the 8th, the day before Nagasaki was bombed. Don't you find it strange that the fact the Soviets entered the war against Japan in the few days between the bombings is never mentioned? Or that the bombs were dropped months and months before the planned invasion? You don't have to take my word for it. Pick up a copy of Hiroshima's Shadow, a collection of primary sources from the time. Read the evidence for yourself.
Hey you're forgetting one thing, Nagasaki wasn't the primary target, but the city that was was very cloudy that day and it wouldn't have given such pretty pictures.
My japanese best friend was my schoolmate in California. He told me they were never taught about the atrocities Japan has committed in the war. Randomyoko an idiotic youtuber denied the japanese soldiers raping of women in countries like korea and the Philippines. The japanese government today doesn’t want their people to know the truth about their shameful past. I had to show my japanese friend what japan did during the war.
I think it's a pity that Japanese veterans of WW2 basically tried to forget the war happened. This has led to a situation where what we know about the war comes primarily from the Allies, the victors. More first hand accounts frim the other side would help us with perspective. One notable exception is the wonderful first hand account called: Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara. An excellent read and one that adjusted my perception of the war in the Pacific. Well done on an excellent reaction video and your conclusion that we shouldn't shy away from this topic no matter how distasteful it can be for fear of loosing the lessons learned by the world as whole after this terrible war
Nice video. I grew up in Singapore and i was thought about the fall of Singapore etc. I had some uncles who were involve in the fall of Hong Kong. So yeah its interesting a Japanese friend of mine who was living in London at that time, we had a few beers in the park and we started about the WW2 and what he learnt and about his grandfather involvement in the Japanese Air force. He was surprised how much he learnt about the Japanese occupation in South East Asia. I told him where i use to love in Loyang/Changi in Singapore about the beach killings and its super haunted as fuck etc etc. But yeah the Japan of the 30s/40s is so different to the Japan of today much like Germany. RIP the many lost souls at a young age on both side of the theatre of war.
Now I realized that what we learned in school is different from what people see from each country.
I think it's important to realize the gap and have your own opinion.
Do not rely on the only piece of information you got.
In Britain history is taught very Unbiased and rational.
We have been both Tyrant's and the liberators many times in History.
We have to be taught the Evil and the Good we have brought the world, it gives us a humble view of our United Kingdom.
This is why we installed the Ideals of Freedom in America, All English Speaking Nations are Family.
Australia, Canada, America and New Zealand are Britain's Children and we are eternally Thankful that they Remembered this in Our Darkest Hour, even though we did no deserve it, Our British Empire Reunited, The English Speaking World, when the World needed it the most.
I Understand how this is seen as hypocritical, It was True Redemption in both World Wars.
Sacrificing our Empire and the lives of our Young Men to save the Very people we had once Enslaved, To Defend the Soil of our Enemies.
Japan should not be ashamed, Japan fought bravely and with Honor, just because they were Allied with Evil does not make them Evil themselves.
They Deserved the Warrior's End that Britain Almost faced, America should not have tested the Bomb on Japan, They should have followed through with their plan and Bombed Russia.
Lest we Forget
@Cegesh The same Reason America has a President.
Neither have any power, just like with ancient Egypt, the Pharaohs were only Figure heads while the Military and Priesthoods held the power.
In Europe it used to be the Church, in America it's the Deep State, unfortunately now they have moved into the Financial and Technology Sectors, Most notably the banking system and Social media Giants.
Kings and Presidents mean nothing, follow where the real power lies because it's been perfected over thousands of years.
American Independence is a good example, the British elites just moved from one Continent to another, but the people would no longer blindly follow Monarchs so they set in place a system that's offers the illusion of freedom while simultaneously eradicating it.
It may have seemed like One Tyrant being replaced with Many in the guise of government, but in truth there is no difference at the core, only from the public eye did a change in power take place.
When every single President except one is related to the Monarchy by blood, it's hard to believe the colonists were manipulated into killing their own kin.
At least today all of Britain's children are stable and safe.
Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.
@Cegesh Look I get what your saying but I can already tell where this is going.
Also anyone can Join the House of Lords, Anyone can become a Lord.
It's not like Game of Thrones, it's not like getting a Knighthood, all you have to do is meet the Criteria, Own Land ect.
If you wanna talk about stuff please be objective, leave your patriotism at the door. We all have Bias lenses and it's difficult to see past them, from the age of 5 we are sat behind a desk with an authority figure, telling us when we Eat, When we Speak, When we can go to the bathroom, its borderline impossible to shake this off and realise History is nothing but Backwards propaganda and lies but Brainwashed or not we can both admit that the people who control the Old World still Control the New one.
It's true. The history we learn in the US doesn't view what we did as atrocities either, even though they absolutely are.
Don't worry American people don't study too much the "soviet" side of the war either, this apply to them too.
Respect to you mate
In a world where a lot of people are trying to erase history, you try to learn from it.
Taking down statues will not erase history!
browndemon386 Theres no more statues of Hitler in Germany, why should we have statues of people who committed such violent atrocities such as the civil war and slavery? Don’t answer that, there’s not an answer.
@@browndemon386 Isn't that such a poor argument?
@@browndemon386 true that
Erasing history is scary to me, as humans are already forgetful and will most certainly repeat history, and I think chance to repeat goes up when you erase lessons of the past.
Alot of Japanese pepole seem to agree that they where never taugth on how and why Japan invaded other countries
maybe because teachers also feel too much pressure to go into controversial topics. As a result students only learn about the numbers and the event's name. We didn't have a chance to learn the reason why.
No country teaches about their war crimes for children and yes every single one has them.
@Ryan Martinson Germany and UK have become pretty self hating after they started to take countless foreigners into their country and recently there has been stories from usa that the teachers are worried that parents can hear what they teach to their children because of distance learning so that would explain that in my opinion.
@@IanMalcolm-rw5pn Well, the Japanese education system history was changed during US occupation with the focus on Japanese suffering because of the war. This was done in order to make a pacifist country which is what the US wanted.
@Ryan Martinson it took the US 30-40 years to admit what it did in Vietnam, it took Germany a freaking second world war to admit what it did in the first world war AND what it did in the second one
with Japan, its a humiliation problem, the government is really not keen on having past events such as massacres being admitted to its people
dont ask me why, im not a Japan expert
Nobody wants to face their own countries shame. As an American, i know this all to well. All we can do is learn from the past so that we don't repeat it.
Yes! you are absolutely right!!
As a fellow American, I agree. I was never a soldier or politician but we need to learn from our past and hold our political leaders responsible for their actions. The people are not in charge and we shouldn't have any kind of prejudice towards people from other countries just because of where they were born. Judge people based on their actions and character.
Yup, Just wrote here in the comment section about the overthrow of Hawaii on that same point.
The hard thing about the US is that It seems the only great power that to this day still uses the tactics that haunts them. Like funding terrorists groups and subcidising drug production in all scales while sending firearms for everyone and making a perpetual war on drugs and terror caused by them. Also the whole instituitionalized racism thing.
@@dinamosflams agree with the first point, not so much with the second. "Institutionalized" would imply that it's written down in law or policy. I'd argue the U.S. compared to any other countries are the most diverse and inclusive which is actually written down in law and policy such as the IDEA act under Bush, Affirmative Action or Diversity Quotas set by the federal government for schools or companies to get subsidies or tax breaks.
My grandfather was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked & fought in a number of battles in the Pacific Theater. Honestly he never could find forgiveness for Japan after what he witnessed & experienced but he did see how much your country changed in his later years & this certainly lightened his view seeing the incredible change. I think if he was still alive he would have found forgiveness. It is hard for any soldier when they see their friends die at the hands of another.
Nice words, thanks for it. One of my Grandfathers was on the easter front... he went POW to the soviets. He survied it. But he never ever talked bout the war or the Prison. The only thing what i once said was "What we did to them, was unforgiving. I hope they will forgive germany once. Whatever they did to me, it was right. Because we tried to kill them all." He was a broken man after the war. I was a child there and didnt understand. But now? Now as a german i say the famous proverb! NEVER AGAIN!
An official apology by the gvmt would be nice, no? Because I haven't seen it till this day.
My grandfather fought on iwo jima he lost his two brothers his oldest brother and his 2 oldest brother he loved them so much but they were killed from a motar it hit them were they laying at with the machine gun they both died on iwo jima my grandpa was mad he was depressed he became an alcoholic person and racist person but he saw the world changing like how your grandpa was he died in 2019 he was 99
Something I want to say in regards to when you say things like, "We killed a lot of people." and other similar statements. No *you* didn't. You weren't alive when this happened, these actions were not yours nor that of any other Japanese who came afterwards. They may be in the national history but they are not your crimes they belong to those who committed them. This is why I tend to have a problem with apologies being demanded decades later from those who had nothing to do with an event.
Any glossing over of history is not your fault, it's the fault of those attempting to downplay or divert from the worst of what happened. Ignoring history doesn't make it go away, so the fact that you aren't ignoring or hiding from this admittedly dark place in Japan's past is something to be commended for. Never ignore history, the good and the bad. It's how we become better people for it.
^ This * 100
Agree there should be nothing like,you are responsible for doing of your ancestors specially when it's almost 80 years ago. .
I agree with most of that. But there are still government or politicans that active today tryiing to how hide what the Japanese army did back then. Or even as an American, I am ashame of misconducts (rape and harrassment) by our US soldiers that happened over the decades since US occupied Japan at the end of the war. Bad things are still happening; there are still bad people out there even if they are not as many cases as when we were all at war.
Apologies keep getting demanded because they never apologize. It keeps getting passed down the generations because the former refused to apologize. It is Japaneses' own fault for kicking the can down the road, hoping it will go away. Their first so called "apology" came in the 1970s. That's decades after the war! And even then, each time they carefully word their 'apology' to sound like an apology when translated to English, but in original Japanese wording it really isn't or is muddied. Very sly. That's why it persists.
Well said, children should not be responsible for sins of their parents
That's why every history teacher in the world, if worth a damn, should show this video to their classes!!
They are too busy teaching them to hate their own Nation.
@@jcarlovitch We've done a lot of messed up shit! Most countries have. Nothing wrong with truth. It's when you act like we're the only ones to do screwed up stuff, and everybody else is innocent, that I have a problem!!
My teach did in my junior year of high school, it’s a great video and he was such a good teacher. Hope he’s doing well
Well I wouldn't say so. This video contains a few simple, but important mistakes.
There's only such much time any teacher has to teach a given curriculum. People need to learn things on their own, otherwise they're going to be at school 24 hours a day.
In the US I was basically taught that America won the war, this was in the 60's and 70's. It wasn't until I went to college that I learned about just how much of the European war was fought by Russia and the terrible price they paid. As an aside, once one side starts killing civilians wholesale it would be unrealistic to not expect the other side to respond in kind. Part of that is to destroy the enemy's ability to make war, i.e. industrial facilities.
The US didn't pay the blood toll that the Soviet Union did, that said with out the Lend-Lease program the Soviet's would have either lost or been completely decimated even worse then they were. Many people focus on the military equipment that was sent, but the real deciding factor of Lend-Lease was the non-combat supplies like train engines and rolling stock, as well as food. Without it the Soviet Union would have been hard pressed to maintain their industrial base that was almost completely dedicated to military equipment. That is why the US was considered the Arsenal of democracy.
very true. . without the soviets front of the war germany would have been near imposible to stop without an extremely long war
We didn't lose as many people because we actually cared about our soldiers. We fought hard but we fought smart. Mass wave assault doctrines of Russia caused the deaths of millions as much as the Germans gunning them down were. It was a political strategy by Stalin, he sent the rural soldiers first and the communists last. This was to give him better control over a post war Soviet Union. It worked, too.
@@sid2112 It's not that simple. Russian here, and basically what was so different with the Eastern Front, was not only the absolute disregard for human life by the Soviet leadership, which I'm in no way denying, but the Germans acted differently too. It was Lebensraum, the ideological goal of Germany was to exterminate and enslave the Slavic population, which they looked upon with almost as much disgust as the Jews, not even talking about the fear of communism. This resulted in a different kind of war, a war of extermination, which was not the case on the Western Front. Apart from that, defending Russia was not that easy, as most of it's European part is located on the European planes, you have few major rivers that you have to cross and can't just go around (like Rhine in the west), no mountain chains (like the Alpes, or smaller hilly areas like the Ardennes forest), instead you just have thousands of kilometers of mud and fields, quite hard to defend, this lack of defensive geography led also to large encirclements and many soldiers being taken POW, or, as was the case often in the East, just killed on the spot. Most of the deaths occured in 1941-1943, when the Soviet Union struggled to get the upper hand against a more technologically advanced enemy with superior tactics, occupying the part of the country with the most production output and a big percentage of the population. Also, Germany didn't focus as much on the UK and Germany, all thoroughout the war, most of it's troops were in the East, and even during the last months of the war, Soviets met more resistance from the Germans, as the Nazis preferred to be taken by the allies to what would happen to them when the Soviets, who lost millions of their family members, brothers in arms and countrymen would do to them. And we saw the amounts of warcrimes and particularly rapes that occured in occupied East Germany, not denying that. I'm not downplaying the role of Stalin and the Soviet leadership in those deaths (both Soviet and those occuring because of the Soviet warcrimes) either, just pointing out that it's not really fair to compare the Eastern and Western fronts. And disregarding what happend in the East as just "failure of the commanding staff" is outright disrespectful and ignorant
@@macanaeh I agree in part, except for the lessons learned in North Africa freely made available to Soviet lesdership. Open land engagement tactics had been matured and that maturity lent to Soviet command at the time. As far as a different war, yes absolutely. Extermination was the goal on both sides for similar ideological reasons. Either way, the Eastern European states were going to have a bad time. Examples of this include things like the Holodomor and the Great Purge, pogroms initiated and encouraged by both sides based on ideology and race. It was a bad time for everyone no doubt about it. And as far as it not being so bad for the people of Western Europe this is also true. When US or British forces liberated a town, the people understood the good guys had arrived. Not so much in the eastern front.
"The death of a single man is a tragedy, but the deaths of many is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin.
we also have that kind of proverb. I forgot what it is though... haha
@@YuyaNipponess 日本語で?
(日本語で言えば分かるので教えてくれませんか)
@@1Anime4you Stalin is overrated, genocidal tyrants should not be quoted as a source of wisdom
@@xGoodOldSmurfehx wrong
xGoodOldSmurfehx
Discounting the wisdom that got them into power is denying history. What you’re projecting is that ‘perfect’ people exist; Stalin was a paranoid, murderous tyrant, but you can’t get to where he is without being intelligent. Being intelligent enough to differentiate between what qualities of a person are worth learning from is an important tool in life. Aside from that, without the atrocities that Stalin committed, we could not learn how to prevent and identify those atrocities. We wouldn’t be able to detect earthquakes without having dealt with devastating ones in the past.
As a Korean, I don't blame japanese people for not knowing the crimes that their country has committed. It's the fault of japanese politicians and educational system that doesn't teach this topics. It seems that most japanese people aren't aware of the fact that it isn't only Chinese and Koreans that were victims of the Imperialist Japan. Japanese people were victims too. In 2nd world war japan was an ally of Nazi Germany. We all know how that ended. A lot of innocent people died in a horrible way because of the actions taken by corrupt, innocent people killing government. It's okay to have pride of your country, but it's not okay changing history and facts because of that pride (I'm looking at you mr Abe). History can't be changed. But it's important to learn it in order to not make the same mistakes again.
As a fellow korean it wis know that the Japanese don’t really learn a lot of ww2 and what they did in it
it’s the same thing in Belgium we learn almost nothing about the atrocity committed in the congo, we just know that it was a "private property" of king leopold and that he bequeathed it to Belgium in 1908.
Reading the entries of Japanese soldiers fighting in the pacific theater going from patriotic and proud to serve their emperor to being bitter and betrayed made realize something: This shit should be shared with Japanese citizens. That and the accounts of Japanese forces in China and other east Asian countries because it's really hard to pretend something isn't real when it's actual people's reports and entries staring you in the face (and not a textbook blurb).
@@ErwinBlonk hell it took a vietnam doucumentary series where they interviewed former us generals and vietcong members to even understand why the US was there. (100% Frances fault) Every country does its best to hide its shady shit from the history books.
In a world where the internet is in everyones pocket, ignorance is a choice.
I've seen quite a few documentaries on WW2,but this video is one of the most informative.Mostly,because it's so visually shocking,and clearly points out the millions of victims from each particular country.The first time most people see this,they're in absolute shock with how many were killed in Russia!😳
sometimes its really good to watch those documentary videos. We can learn a lot from them
As a European and a historian I salute you. Your opinion and an open mind are something very important if we want this world to become a better place. Just: you did not kill anyone. It was not your fault. Not the fault of most of the people living today. We should not ignore the dark history of our countries but we should accept it as it was. A history. An opportunity to learn from the mistakes of those before us. The fact you are not afraid to face history and are willing to learn from it makes you a great person.
I wish there would be more people like you.
Cheers
In America it is generally called The Rape of Nanking (or Nanjing as you would call it). Look into the history of Unit 731 as well. In many ways worse than the Rape of Nanking.
Ultimately no country is free from blame when it comes to atrocities.
I try to remain optimistic, that we are smarter than we were 70 years ago and such things are less likely to happen again, but I'm not sure that is even realistic. Peace be with you friend.
I wonder why the USA has had such a long pass from blame. Maybe their karma is just delayed.
Wym? Unit 731 was Japanese
@@alukuhito karma doesn't exist. I don't see evil people being punished by karma. Fantasy and reality are two very different things. Communists who have caused death and torture to my ancestors during the 70s is still doing fine from what I can see.
@@khalee95 Karma just means for every action there is a reaction. Whether you see a result or not doesn't make a difference. You don't know the totality of the universe. You don't know how any action's reaction will come. Just because you don't see something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or won't come later.
everyone has blood on their hands...its hard to cast stones on anyone else without being a hypocrite..but yes like the holocast the rape of nanking the horrors of units like 731 and others plus the march were a bit extreme genocides basically and crimes against humanity....war is hell but japan made sure to take out their little man syndrome against big brother china extra hard out of pent up anger for the bigger nations and the fact they knew they could not win even 1/3 of china land and maintain it..
As a polish guy I was shocked that almost a fifth of my countries population was killed, I knew the losses were drastic, but I did not know to what extent ultimately.
@peter schwarz are you seriously denying the holocaust?
@peter schwarz unfortunately there are almost no innocent questions, and people will always infer something from them about the person asking. However your questions appear much less than innocent; if they were genuine then you wouldn't be asking the youtube comment section now would you? I certainly don't claim to be a historian knowledgeable all about the holocaust, you're free to look it up on google. Although knowing your type you would try to claim my not answering your questions as a win.
@peter schwarz you're the one apparently trying to have a "serious" inquiry of the holocaust on the youtube comment section of all places
@peter schwarz why don't you just keep replying buddy boy
@peter schwarz lmao if you think its only eye witness evidence
My wife is Japanese and I find myself informing and correcting her about a lot of things in world history, particularly when it comes to Japanese history. Thanks for the video. Most Japanese people don't want to look into what actually happened, just as Americans don't like to look into some of the ugly parts of our past.
I wish I had a Japanese wife 🥲
America has some baaad karma. The war on the Native Americans and the Mexican-American War are the most obvious examples.
@@Conn30Mtenor karma does not exist my friend. Its a concept you like to believe in so that you feel you have some control over the world and how you experience it, when in reality you don't.
@Michelle sorry, how exactly does karma exist from the nonsense you decided to type?
@Michelle-bm5pg It's called consequences not karma also the reasoning you provided has nothing to do with the wars mentioned earlier. It's just happened that USA has fairly open immigration policy and has rich economy. It's just surrounded by a lot of "poor" countries. If we look at Russia they did some insane atrocities, had a lot of wars but no one want's to live there because it's a shithole. Karma is literally not a thing
in the Soviet Union, people themselves went to war; children from 14 to 16 years old forged documents and went to the front
yep. heroism was strong. It has a reason why russians call it the patriotic war. Sadly many dont recognize that. many soldiers / villagers diddnt even wanted to retreat at some points of the battle when stalin ordered it.
@@semiramisubw4864 Stalin ordering people back xddd Look up order #227 :) My family's history was forged arround that order
@@semiramisubw4864 Are you for real?! "Stalin ordering soldiers and villagers to fall back, but they refused" are you some kind of a moron, or are you trolling? It was under *DIRECT ORDERS OF STALIN* that civilians were forbidden to evacuate from endangered areas and cities. Official reasoning being "to motivate the Soviet soldiers to fight harder" to save them. While front units were explicitly forbidden to retreat under any circumstances. If any unit got overwhelmed and retreated in the best case scenario its commander was executed, in the worst all of them would be either killed, or end up in Penal Battalions - having the "privilege and honor" to lead any future suicidal attacks. There were also those "funky" units introduced on Stalin's order called "Blocking Battalions" their role was very simple - block/prevent the retreat of Soviet units through "expenditure of ammunition" = they were shooting their own troops if they witnessed them retreat, or "not advance enthusiastically enough". Stalin himself was quoted saying *"In the Red Army it takes more courage to retreat than to attack"* .It is orders like that that explain the number of the Soviet casualties - it is often estimated that if not for Stalin and his policies at least 2/3 of total Soviet WW2 casualties could have been easily avoided. *2/3!* = almost 70% f**g percent of over 20 million dead! Go and learn something on the subject first before you say something.
@@ErwinBlonk Are you actually defending Stalin? Did the Belgian Army refuse to evacuate civilians too? Those 2 aren't even compatible.
@@ErwinBlonk I wasn't certain what you wanted to achieve by bringing the Belgian Army to the discussion, so I asked for clarification - a very visible question mark at the end of "Are you actually defending Stalin?" indicates a question, not a "conclusion".
"So let me explain in the way you can't misinterpret": Don't bring - "yeah but (insert here) wasn't the first to do (insert here), he just did more of it" if your intention is to condemn someone, because it looks suspiciously like arguing in defense of someone's actions.
The OP in the comment said ~ "Stalin was ordering soldiers and civilians to retreat, but they refused" which is a *LIE* that needed correcting. I didn't say Stalin was the first, nor being the first, second, third, eleventh would make any difference to my argument - Stalin didn't order anyone to evacuate and couldn't care less for the number of dead, on the contrary, he did his utmost to make retreat a more deadly choice for anyone than a suicidal advance. I have no beef with you, just the liar to whom I replied.
Peace to the Fallen🇦🇺🇧🇪🇩🇪🇬🇧🇫🇷🇮🇹🇯🇵🇵🇱🇷🇺🇺🇸🇮🇱
Would be better if all of the participating flags were in there
@@kiri4186 That would be a lot a flags.
@@kobegeyskens7327 it would be great tho
Add these too, they were in Soviet union. Mostly in eastern side 🇺🇦🇧🇾
🇦🇨🇦🇪🇦🇫🇦🇬🇦🇮🇦🇱🇦🇲🇦🇸🇦🇹🇦🇺🇦🇼🇦🇿🇧🇦🇧🇧🇧🇩🇧🇪🇧🇫🇧🇬🇧🇭🇧🇮🇧🇯🇧🇲🇧🇳🇧🇷🇧🇸🇧🇹🇧🇼🇧🇾🇧🇿🇨🇦🇨🇨🇨🇩🇨🇫🇨🇬🇨🇮🇨🇰🇨🇲🇨🇳🇨🇽🇨🇾🇨🇿🇩🇪🇩🇯🇩🇰🇩🇲🇩🇴🇩🇿🇪🇪🇪🇬🇪🇷🇪🇹🇫🇮🇫🇯🇫🇰🇫🇲🇫🇴🇫🇷🇬🇦🇬🇧🇬🇩🇬🇪🇬🇫🇬🇬🇬🇭🇬🇮🇬🇲🇬🇳🇬🇷🇬🇸🇬🇺🇬🇾🇭🇰🇭🇷🇭🇺🇮🇩🇮🇱🇮🇳🇮🇴🇮🇶🇮🇷🇮🇸🇮🇹🇯🇪🇯🇲🇯🇴🇯🇵🇰🇪🇰🇬🇰🇭🇰🇮🇰🇲🇰🇳🇰🇵🇰🇷🇰🇼🇰🇾🇰🇿🇱🇦🇱🇧🇱🇨🇱🇰🇱🇸🇱🇹🇱🇺🇱🇻🇱🇾🇲🇦🇲🇪🇲🇬🇲🇭🇲🇰🇲🇱🇲🇲🇲🇳🇲🇷🇲🇸🇲🇹🇲🇺🇲🇻🇲🇼🇲🇾🇳🇦🇳🇪🇳🇬🇳🇱🇳🇴🇳🇵🇳🇷🇳🇺🇳🇿🇴🇲🇵🇬🇵🇭🇵🇰🇵🇱🇵🇳🇵🇷🇵🇸🇶🇦🇷🇴🇷🇸🇷🇺🇷🇼🇸🇧🇸🇩🇸🇬🇸🇭🇸🇮🇸🇰🇸🇱🇸🇳🇸🇴🇸🇷🇸🇸🇸🇾🇸🇿🇹🇦🇹🇨🇹🇩🇹🇫🇹🇬🇹🇭🇹🇯🇹🇲🇹🇳🇹🇴🇹🇻🇹🇼🇹🇿🇺🇦🇺🇬🇺🇸🇺🇿🇻🇬🇻🇳🇻🇺🇼🇸🇽🇰🇾🇪🇿🇦🇿🇲🇿🇼 These are all of the flags
All of my family is from the former soviet union, as they were one of the first to witness the Nazis invading their homeland in 1941. My great-grandfather was just in, I think 3rd or 5th grade when the Germans invaded. He was never able to finish school but I am glad he was able to survive and live to this day (he's currently still alive.) My great grandmother had to flee her home in order to survive the war. She hid documents of the house she owned and hid them underground (she dug those up after the war to later have to prove that she owned the property she fled from because somebody else took the house from her.)
Than we have my great uncle, he survived the war but his wife did not. His story is very sad because when he lost his wife he was struck with so much grief that he never tried or even attempted to date or marry any women again. My great uncle lost his wife in the Siege of Leningrad. A long and bloody siege, lasted for 872 days. He lived until the late 1990's, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, would of died alone as well but my grandparents visited time to time and were there when he past on. He even had a calming smile on his face in his last moments knowing at least someone was there for him in the end. Nothing beats family being there for you.
This message isn't intended to make someone's day bleak.
If you have read this message, thanks for taking the time out of your day to listen to some of my families history. Have a pleasant rest of the day.
- Hybrid
“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
and there was a follow up:
That’s the thing, though. None of us have forgotten. Darned if we’re not repeating it anyway...
I find it sad that the Japanese school system still refuses to teach much of the horror of the Imperial Army and what they did, I feel everyone should know their own history the good, the bad, and the ugly.
@Clone Rayne "war crimes" how naive and childish, like a true Marxist puppet.
Vae Victis
@Clone Rayne War crimes are only war crimes if you lose. lol
@Clone Rayne lmao that's not how it ever worked historically, nor how it works currently. The winner decides what war crimes are and how the criminals are punished.
@Clone Rayne The OT contains genocide warfare, and Krishna wiped out an entire forest in the Mahabharata, displacing it's inhabitants lmao.
"...after the first Geneva Convention."
Speaking of things that mattered less, the GC is it. Global hegemons do not abide by it. War crime charges are for the little guys, mouthbreather. You have an idiotic understanding of warfare, politics, and history.
@Clone Rayne I'm quite familiar with those two books, more so than you are. Deuteronomy and Numbers, for instance, both narrate wholesale destruction of peoples as a prescriptive measure.
"during this time said rules of war were only really applicable to those of the same religion as you, but they were internationally accepted (as in between two or more nations accepted) rules of war."
I'm not even sure how you can square these two clauses together. Contradictory mess. Moreover, they were not universally accepted between nations. You need to provide evidence for such from Ancient Near Eastern sources (your cited Deuteronomic texts argue against your thesis).
"but the point is, laws of war have existed for a long time, and breaking them is a war crime."
If anything, they were an internal matter, not some grandiose normative, ethical issue between nation states.
"It doesn't matter at all if every single nation or individual abides by them..."
Hegemonic powers don't care, dude, lol.
"You're perhaps the least educated individual regarding war crimes and history in general..."
Cites OT siege warfare, thinking it supports his argument, lmao.
"...because you took a single history course at community college..."
Incorrect, didn't take a single history course for my post-secondary education. Additionally, is there something wrong with community college? Is it not academic enough for your elite status?
War is a path that is easiest to do, peace is challenged that few listen to
that's right. it sounds like a proverb. Is it?
@@YuyaNipponess No but its true, it is easier to fire a gun than to talk someone out of a situation -
The big Questions to ask is why, that's nobody as ask.
As to why terrible wars happen in the first place. Have the world nation learnt from them. WW1 was a terrible war to end all wars. It should have ended all was after it. But it didn't, there about a 21 year gap between WW1 and WW2.
WW2 is connected TO WW1. 🙄
Sounds like a quote, from whom I ask?
@@m101ist tell that to mustached guy who humilated by war! War is hell !
I think the Japanese (and all others) can learn from the Germans about how to admit past sins and atrocities with self-respect and integrity without losing face or pride.
Tell it as it was from as many viewpoints as possible. The good and the bad. The truth.
And remember that past sins of the parents are not sins of their children, current or future generations.
Respect for talking about this, Yuya 🙏
The german model: control then in a spiral of propaganda and guilt.
I am from Germany and I couldn't agree more.
Not so much a fan of people being beaten over the head with guilt they themselves did not partake in. People should be educated on what their nation has done, certainly, but don’t best people with a stick labelled “guilt”, that’s not a good way to teach a nations history, no matter how terrible the act it committed in history.
Agreed, senpai!
You're not even German...
Interesting to always have a perspective from someone who comes from one of the Axis nations in WW2.
Good video, I recommend checking out Oversimplified's WW1 and WW2 history.
Thank you!! I will try my best!
This oversimplyfied videos are bullshit.......they use stereotypes and not the truth.......Saddam-Hussein-Oversimplyfied would tell you, that Saddam would have weapons of mass-destruction.....we all know, this is a lie....so is the oversimplyfied for WW1 and WW2.
@@keinervondaoben720 nice story, now find me who asked.
@@o_o8684 .....my comment is a reaction to Zexal42 initial comment refering to "oversimplified WW1 and WW2". This oversimplyfied stories are orientated on the official story from the allies which are mainly lies.
@@keinervondaoben720 if you could spell and give us evidence that it was a lie and not a conspiracy then sure we'll believe you
We are such close allies now. The war will hopefully never be forgotten, but our peoples have grown so close. The USA and Japan have a strong future together, I just hope we can come together here in the USA and remember what really matters.
Is Japan really an true ally. Or better put it. Is US an true ally to Japan? As far as I know both Japan and Germany have different restrictions on their military, what they can have and what not. That is not an ally, that is an vassal/slave state in some meaning.
Oh Yeah? The United States has completely controlled the economy and army of Japan since the end of World War II, and also has military bases in Japan. A vassal cannot be an ally, Japan is still under US occupation and this is a fact.
@@MrSarMax You're pretty much correct, but it's unlikely that Japan will stay as such for much longer.
Oh Yeah? It will remain as long as the USA Armed Forces will control the Japanese army, the USA military bases will be located in Japan, and the economic institutions of the USA government will control the Japanese economy. Until Japan actually becomes a sovereign state again, and not will be just another country controlled by the USA empire.
@@MrSarMax Well, our government is committing suicide so it won't be long.
Very interesting seeing from a Japanese perspective. Here in Indonesia we have a saying that roughly translates to "3 and a half years of Japanese occupation was worse than 350 years of Dutch oppression/occupation".
Genocides and Sex slavery. I can see why the Japanese government would try to not mention them too much.
3 years and 7 month. I remember my grandparents always say this.
Stanley Leonard Darmali Many Indonesians are completely unaware that Japanese soldiers were cooperating and died for in the Indonesian National Revolution.It’s poor people.
@@user-ek3tn1mp4g Yep and that there were Indonesians fighting for the Dutch,etc.... All unfortunately lost in the fog of history.
@@ErwinBlonk Honestly doesn't matyer what it's called as long as the atrocities are acknowledged.
My Grandfather was a Japanese-American in the 442nd. Because of this, my father has a great appreciation of history, especially about WW2. In addition, there was this old lady who was a concentration camp survivor who would hold an event every year in the church next to my middle school where she would tell her story. She was lucky, even though she had to suffer and become separated from her family, moving across several camps, because she was eventually tasked with peeling carrots and other such tasks, and would eat the shavings to live, and eventually, make it out alive.
I asked for her signature, and I still have it. She was in very old age at the time, and I wanted to remember her and her story.
What we really need to take away from this is that almost every country has blood on its hands, and has done something wrong at the expense of another country. Rather than hide it for the sake of hollow pride and nationalism, we should teach these grave, horrible mistakes in schools so that the younger generations never make the same mistakes in the future. Learning about the event from the other point of view shows the things that may be brushed aside in what they teach you in schools.
Well stated! I wish the best for everyone.
It's refreshing to hear a Japanese perspective on world war two and major historical events. Many blessings from Ireland.
Very interesting to see this from a japanese perspective!
In Germany we were taught quite a bit about it in school but mostly about the european theatre and especially the holocaust.
Later on i also found out about my families involvement in the war by finding some old letters etc.
Thanks! I know there are many stories about this big event. We gotta move on, learn lessons from the past. Make the world the better place.
@@YuyaNipponess very wise indeed! I’ve always lived by a phrase “forgive but never forget” because if we forget it’ll happen again 😬
I personally love watching the perspectives of people from other countries.
In these troubled times, it is easy to get confused and forget about important things. So remember:
Peace=good
War=bad
people say that, but hitler could have been put down if the league of nations did its job and invaded germany when germany had all of its forces invading poland. France could have mounted a full scale invasion of germany and hurt them badly. But it was the cowards on the pilotical table that let hitler cause over 70 million deaths from the total war. rolling over and showing your belly for "Peace" never works. people forget what led up to ww2 and how it could have been prevented in a smaller war. China and japan also exist and had lots of deaths. but at least in europe it could have been stopped way earlier.
Vaccinations = bad
Very honored for your time and observations.
You're open to learning about history from all the different perspectives and for that, you have my greatest respect 🙏
One of my most profound life experiences was training, and later enjoying liberty with, JGSDF personnel. Here this man sits in front of me, my friend and ally, just a few generations back our grandfathers were trying to kill each other. We had immense respect for each other and never even thought of WW2. So much has changed. I would proudly fight with the JGSDF today, and many of my family (pacific vets) died decades later hating them.
It's funny how in any WWII video that even mentions the USSR and the blood they spilt alongside the other Allies in fighting against the Axis, people with self-righteous black-and-white views of history start crawling out the woodwork to try and discredit their sacrifice.
Yes, as evil as the Soviet Union was we cannot forget about the blood they spilt. Without any one of the 3 major allied nations (US, UK, USSR) the war couldn’t have been won by the allies. America didn’t win the war. The good men and women of all allied nations who fought and worked in the factories to battle evil won. *Together.*
@@brotherhoodofsteeld.c.chap1917 I agree. I have seen a quote something along the lines of 'The UK bought the time, The USA shared the resources, The USSR spilt the blood'. Very simplified but there is truth in it too, however it does miss out the not insignificant roles played in the European theatre by many other nations. But the losses by the USSR are truly horrific compared to anyone else. Love from the UK
@@Davey-Boyd That is why May 9 is one of the main holidays in Russia. New Year and Christmas are already in the background. Our grandfathers and fathers made a toast after the war, so that there would be no war, because they went through this hell and survived.
I feel bad they didn't spend more time going over the deaths in Japan. The graphs at their webpage is pretty good though.
As someone of Chinese descent but along with my parents was born and raised in a western nation I take a more external look to the current relations the Asian nations have. I'd like nothing more than to see them all reconcile and move forward for mutual benefit and prosperity - but view the inability for Japan's government and higher authorities to clamp down on denial, acknowledge events and show consistency of remorse to be done of their biggest challenges.
Followed finally by teaching their future generations what has happened in the past - not to humiliate or shame but to inform and grow so as to give them the best chance to not see them repeat such actions again.
As many have mentioned, Germany is a prime example of a nation and people who have been able to mend deep wounds with old enemies and form new and positive relationships with each other with a goal of moving forward to create a better future outcome.
We can all come together and collectively learn from our past so that we can collectively grow! This is an amazing video man! Sending love from the UK!
On the concentration camp apparently the Russian reaction to overrunning one while guards were still there was so bad it was officially stricken from the record what the soldiers did to the guards once they saw the prisoners.
It's very interesting to get our perspective. Thanks for that.
What an insightful intro. I am still watching the video, yet my expectations are going up skyrocketing.
Love seeing a Japanese insight and what you knew about wwii from school and such.
Thank you very much!
My grandfather is japanese as well as my grandmother but she was only half. Mori clan. My generation makes me only a quarter Japanese but speak some Japanese. I learned about the history of ww2 but I tend to shy away from the subject when it's brought up. It's good to learn from past mistakes so we do not repeat it again. Lots of people lost their lifes on all sides and this was truly a world War more than the 1st ww. Because almost every where in the world was touched by the war. Its reach knows no bounds. Truly horrific
You should react to "Come and see"(1985)
Watching your emotions change as you learned this was very moving.
I can't watch WW2 stuff without shedding a few tears.
(U.S.) My teacher in High School was very proactive about informing us about things not heavily covered or skipped in class. So luckily I didnt get taught with a narrow minded view. But these visuals are amazingly informative. I wish this gets put in every School across the world
Spread understanding, then through knowing each other we can feel compassion
Thanks for giving your perspective, greatly appreciated. Hope you give your perspective on more stuff like this!
Hi Yuya, I hadn't seen this video and I enjoyed feeling like I was watching it together with you. I enjoy your genuine reactions and thoughts and I am happy I found your channel. Don't worry about not remembering things from school! I think people forget things they learned in school if they don't use them after. I'm actually impressed that you seem to remember so much!
As a German and a former German soldier I still get goosebumps when I hear the word "Stalingrad", even when I just think of it.
My family and my village lost a lot of young men in that war and espacially in Russia/Soviet Union.
I hope such things will never happen again and I really hope the Russians think the same.
For Americans the war was about industrial capacities, for continental Europe it was about if or if not your country, your city, your village, your family gets to be wiped out.
Russians know the true meaning of the word "sacrifice" -Victor Reznov (I know its from Cod, but it still holds true)
Thank you so much mate for your honest view on this topic.... full respect from an Australian
My late father was a captain in the Chinese Army and after the war became a career diplomat. He taught me that although it is difficult to forget what the Japanese did in WW2, he forgives them. My relatives and I largely forgives them too and my late mom who graduated with full scholarship in an American College had a Japanese schoolmate. Her friend profusely apologized for the war since they were taught that China belongs to them but after the war, they found that it was a lie. They maintained their friendship after they both graduated and even with her friend going back to Japan. I say the road to peace is always the best way to live and understand each other.
School books are “always” a bit affected by whatever country’s government
'The Victor writes the history'
@@terencejay8845 Or rather, one doesn't wish to admit there mistakes
Im glad young people in Japan are not closing their minds off to history and what happened. Keep up the great videos man 🇺🇲❤🇯🇵
This is cool, nice to learn a different perspective. Keep it going. Subbed.
I remember the first time I watched that video, it was so heartbreaking. Both of my grandfathers were in WW2, one for Canada and one for Germany.
What they don’t mention in any of these videos is the extent, cruelty and creativity of the torture used in Japan on their POWs during WWII. It was so extreme that Japan earned the dubious reputation around the world for being the “best” at torture.
When people in the modern world think of Japan during the war the two things that will probably come to mind is the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the extreme torture of POWs.
When I was a boy I used to know an old WWII vet that had all his fingers on his left hand cut off one knuckle at a time when he was a POW in Japan, he considered himself lucky compared to most. One example that stuck with me was when he told me about a friend of his who was staked to the ground and left for bamboo to grow through him, as if the pain of the bamboo slowly growing through your internal organs wasn’t bad enough, the smell of blood would eventually attract rats! long story short it took him days to die, seriously grimm stuff. Nightmare fuel really!
I understand why they wouldn’t want to teach young kids about that in Japan, but I feel it’s important that it’s taught at some point near the end of their education. After all, those who don’t learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.
@Daisy Wong I'd say it's simple. Japan has largely been liberalised since the end of the war, and pose no threat to the local and global power structure. China on the other hand, is doing everything it can to destabilise all regions that border the country, has a god complex which has existed throughout its history, and is encroaching on the territory of other countries.
It's about who keeps control, and I'd rather have the US in control than China.
peter schwarz that’s also very true, there’s no doubt the allies did terrible thing during the war also. but honestly, don’t you think how history is taught in Japan is at the very least, unusual? We are told that history is supposedly written by the victors.... but it would appear that’s only true if you’re not Japan, because when you are Japan (through use of “special pleading”, straight up denial and misplaced pride) reality can go take a long walk off a short pier! 😅😅 It feels like if they could get away with it, the Japanese government would tell its citizens that japan hardly even participated in WWII and that the bombing of Japan was entirely unprovoked! Surly that doesn’t seem right to anyone? Nobody likes to be lied to by their government, and the fault isn’t with the people! in all of the world I believe that Japanese culture and people are among the greatest! For the most part Japanese history and culture is nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful, it is ancient, technologically advanced, highly sophisticated, and wonderfully unique! But denying a stain exists or saying it’s not as bad as it is... who are those lies helping really?
lugiabossman come on! I wouldn’t go that far! 😅😅 putting the US in charge?! 😂😂😂 that’s just replacing a demon😈 with a devil👿! 😅😂😂 haven’t you seen what’s going on over there these days? It’s total a shit show! 😅😂😂 last time that country was this divided it ended with the American civil war! It’s lucky they don’t all have guns!... oh, wait, that’s right, they do!! 😂😂😂
peter schwarz you make a fair point, and I’m pretty sure a third attempt at global domination is fairly unlikely 😅, however at the time those policies were introduced the rest of the world decided that two attempts was already two attempts too many! Therefore extreme precautions were taken, and those policies are still in place. A contemporary example could be made with the BLM movement in America. It’s an extreme reaction that’s going way further than it should, but if there hadn’t been a history of systemic racism and oppression in America BLM wouldn’t have existed in the first place. In the end we reap what we sow, sometimes that means subsequent generations need to eat tainted bread 😢
Also I don’t think it’s about who’s still alive from that Time (though there are still a few) but more to do with who DIDN’T make it. My gran had 6 brothers, by the end of the war she only had one, he was too young to fight. My family would probably have been much larger today if not for WWII, so the effects are still with us today. As was mentioned in the video, peace is strange in that it’s measured by those who don’t die in wars that never happened 😅👌❤️✌️🤘🖖
Liberalization in terms of "you do what we want or next bomb will be on another city" UN is bunch of assholes they always was. When it comes to China with current government it would be just about same as if it was US. US politics is like "You do what i want or !"
its crazy cause in my school in Australia i never learned that much of both wars sure we learned some here and there but never any depth but by god did we learn about gallipoli
I'd expect Churchill has a bit of stink about him there.
it is nice to see different perspectives within different countries, communities around the globe. " You can step forward but only if you learn where to place, your foot"-Me. i just came up with, but it shows that in the wider world, look you can't go forward without looking back upon the mistakes from you're self, others, other countries Aswell as your own. I'm a half breed, 48% Japanese, something like 20% American, a mad mix of many Eu countries. half of my family died during the two nukes dropped from the USA, ancestors for all intense and purposes, only because they have died before i could meet them. I live in America, I do my best to learn all the facts, i was blessed my great grandma lived long enough to be able to tell me the story of how she fell in love with a man from the USA marine corps weeks after the nukes had been dropped. For backstory, she went down to Hiroshima to see how much of her family had lived through it, her dad sent her away to the country knowing population centers where to be stricken with bombs, ect. she did not have news, tv, she did not foresee the devastation she was seeing when she arrived. only her cousin lived. she died in 2016... Anway's i know this is an old video, i just wanted to share some things because life is much to keep in the what the world may most want to hear. I have yet to watch all of this, I'm glad to say i know i have already learned something.
Love the reactions, one of my favorite videos in the site....KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK 👍
Good video, it's nice to see your insight on the war.
Next i will make some videos about history, thanks
During my time at my high school we would often have an exchange student program, having some fine people from Nerima (considered our sister city), and for our curriculum we would learn about Australian POWs at Japanese camps, this was a very confronting lesson for us Australian students, and the Japanese exchange students would have to be warned about it, and were given the option to move out of the class for the duration if they felt uncomfortable at all.
At the time it never occurred to me how heavily it could shock someone's understanding of their nation, however all the lads that came over for the exchange program were some of the best mates I've ever met.
an insightful reactiom from a seldom heard perspective. well done 👍
Thank you so much!!!
idk if there is a video about it but one that you should look into reading about is the Japanese unit in WW2 known as Unit 731 and the twisted experiments they did. I love Japan but to me with loving a country and it's culture also means knowing their history and seeing the horrible acts they have committed in their history as just the past but still an important thing that should be learned in full regardless of how upsetting it would be to the status quo, I'm happy to see videos like yours where it is Japanese people pointing out what wasn't taught to them in school versus what was taught in different countries and how the victors see it because as the saying goes "History is Written by the Victors". From what I have read about the Sengoku Jedai and the samurai mentality that was still present during WW2 is that familial honor was a major factor to the point that to prevent them from throwing themselves at an enemy they had no chance at beating by that point in the war America had to drop the bombs otherwise they would have fought to the last person that could hold a weapon. just to reiterate, like the videos and hope to see more come across my feed, keep up the good work
I remember watching a little thing with modern japanese college students and I was shocked how little they knew about ww2 because it's such a big history topic in the US. It just goes to show how different countries focus their education
The most horrifying thing about the number of Soviet deaths is that it's still effecting Russia's population today. Every few generations the population drops because a whole generation never had children. Those people just aren't there to replace the people who die.
I'm German and in EVERY family you had people that were killed or crippled or disfigured in the war as a soldier. Even if they came from rural areas that had not much war going on in daily life. Both my grandfathers survived, both were POW, one in France the other in the East. (Both were not in the Nazi party BTW)
I'm born 1974 and these people were around. (Not my grandfathers, but still). And you had MILLIONS of people coming in from the East that fled death, torture and rape and experienced it. After the war they were in the neighborhood, in your house. Because of shortage of housing it was mandatory to take people in.
Other then the guilt that many or most Germans still have to this day, this death and devastation still runs in the collective and individual psyche. And that is all over Europe and I think this mindset and awe that is still present, when it comes to war, connects the Europeans, but even closer Germans with Russians, Poles and others from the East. I imagine I feel what they feel. Might sound strange, but it was SO major that it might have changed the genes. There is a darkness and depression around these peoples, that we share. But Soviets could cover this hurt with pride, while all Germans had was shame and guilt.
Nie wieder Krieg!
Respect to you, sir. I am always surprised to see Japanese people (very highly educated country) being so clueless on WWII/Sino-Japanese war history. Like many here said, It's the politicians that affected how this piece of history is being taught and can't really blame the people for being naïve. The positive thing is, many Japanese foreign exchange students tend to welcome the information and strive to learn more when we discuss it in university.
what's most shocking to me is that all the comments are somehow from thoughtful, sane, and considerate people. Instead of the usual gang of angry shouting nationalists I expect to find on youtube
People will eventually mature and wise enough to talk about this
It had some educational content. They wouldn't be here.
The light of pure truth sends the Roaches scurrying....
I really appreciate your silence when looking at the European death, most reaction videos start talking when they reach poland, they don't notice how bad it was for us..
in the UK we are taught about both world wars extensivelly, however i still did not realise the enormity of the soviet unions contribution until you see those icons stack u, it really hits deep
Thank you so much for being open, honest, and sharing your point of view.
I wish more people could be like you. Able to update their ideas and beliefs based on new evidence.
I don't remember who said it, but there's a quote that goes something like this: "WW2 was won by British intelligence, American steel, and Soviet blood."
As an American, all I knew was that Stalin was cruel to his own people. I only graduated from high school a few years ago, but it was around that time that I learned from my own research how many people the Soviets sacrificed and lost in the war. In the RUclips comments sections of people reacting to this video, I've seen Russian people say that in Russia, they still to this day find lots of corpses of WW2 vets in spring. The Russians deserve more respect.
The Russian people suffered greatly during the turn of the century, and still bear the scars. They are absolutely deserving of respect and prosperity. Hopefully they'll find it before this century is out.
I'm American but for some reason, some people brag about how it was because of America that the nazis were singlehandedly beat. Which couldn't be any more of a lie. Yes, we were crucial in some battles like the beaches but mostly America was a huge supplier for other nations. It was the Soviet Union that beat the nazis to a pulp after they were betrayed.
@@dudebruh8534 Considering what happened during WW1 and just coming out of a recession, war was not something we wanted to do. You also can't give credit to the soviets since they helped germany start ww2. Stalin was a monster who got everything he deserved.
@@BossesDream Well like it or not its history. After being betrayed they literally pushed the nazis back all the way on their eastern front to Germany. Also, they didn't start ww2 the nazis did. After Germany started invading countries (after declaring war on Britain/the English) they eventually fought to the Polish territory. Hitler didn't want to fight a two-front war so he made a deal with Stalin and promised to split 50 50 of Poland. This was after the war had already started so no, the Soviets didn't start ww2.
But it is a possibility in another timeline if nazi Germany never became a thing then maybe Stalin would've never had made a move. The only reason he did so in the first place (I believe) was that he did have another entire regime backing him up.
@@BossesDream All soldiers don't represent their countries. You think the Russians wanted to die in the snow? A lot were forced in the military. So whether you like it or not the people who fought to end an evil deserve recignation. Even if they represented a lesser evil.
Notice that France lost more people after the surrender than before. It's an interesting dynamic.
It's well known that the French resistance fought long and hard for their country. Unlike it's often depicted the people didn't roll over for the Germans.
Love the video. My mother is Japanese. You'd never know it.... I wish we had a lot of the Japanese customs here in the United States.... Maybe there wouldn't be so much division.
In the Philippines, we were taught of how horrific WW2 was for my country, from grade school up to college. Learning our history from a class, a book or from a museum is eye opening, but when I started to hear the stories of our grandparents, what they have gone through during the Japanese occupation, it just breaks my heart. And yet, we were never taught to hate the Japanese. They may be the aggressors, but they also paid a hefty price. Japan is the only country where nuclear bombs were used, in 2 cities, killing inocent civilians.
I once heard "Tell a Russian the Americans won the war and he'll show you a graveyard". Seems pretty accurate.
Spelled it wrong
Yeah tons of Russians died it's nothing compared to any country that was involved in fights. They didn't really have like choice Stalin was cruel as fuck specially when he want something done he didn't care how much lives it would take. Some soldiers that tried to run where shot by officers on field, it's not like all of them want to be there.
@Feminized Men 2020 Some people say Japan didn't surrender cause of the bombs but because Russia declared war on them. They seemed to had had bad experiences fighting Russia. I'm no historian, I don't know what to believe. But 2 cities disappearing while you blink seem scary enough :P
@@Lokitoh I think power of atom bomb must be scary enough for you to stop doing anything specially if you are leading your nation in war and you know that if you are not going to stop your peoples will be wiped anyway this was the power that they didn't posses at the moment and know it would be catastrophic if they will continue, if Russia told them they will start fight with them too it was just another reason to stop.
@@thechosenone729 actually at that time almost every city in japan was bombed and ruined and there was no big targets to bomb. Bombing didnt care them. But land invasion means a lot of death and losing land, that is why they were scared of USSR. Also USA bombed Vietnam, Afganistan, Iraq, (not atomic) many other and it never made them surrender, only land invasion can finish war.
@@ysakunov Bullshit A bombs alone killed around 200,000 The soviets invaded the same day the first bomb was dropped aug 9 1945 and the japanese surrenders less than a week later. No one had seen what an atomic bomb can really do before then, after seeing everything within a mile radius completely destroyed they knew they had no chance.
I never felt more connected as a people, than when he started saying “bla bla bla” lmao
I'm 57 my grand parents, great grand parents fought 1st and 2nd wars,I was raised to hate them.but getting older meetings of these peoples, they very nice 👍 and I've forgotten the hatreds I grew up with.there hope,love and understanding within us God bless everybody
1:47 The term 'rape' was used several times but it is best known in the book "The Rape of Nanking" by the American Historian Iris Chang. It is considered one of the best books on the subject of the atrocities that occurred in Nanking.
What always bothers me is that the presenter always describes it as "good" that "only" poor countries fight each other and not the rich ones. That is a pretty hypocritical standpoint in my point of view. Poor countries whose people are already suffering from hunger, poverty, and other things use the bit of money they got to wage war...
Regarding how world war 2 is taught in Japan: Playing the Victim | Historical Revisionism and Japan by Knowing Better is a video I´d very much like to hear your thoughts on.
First I admit that we did many inhumane act. Meaningless killing. No excuse for that. Likewise there were many innocent japanese citizens killed during the war. Can't I say they were also victims? There are many sides of stories. Bright side and dark side. Personally I just think we should teach both sides of story to make our young generation know more and better than we do. Also I admit some politics are trying to hide the dark side. That's what we grown up have to work on
@@YuyaNipponess You don´t have to take responsibility like that, my friend. I´m German myself and have relatives who were either murdered or forced to flee by the Soviet Army in 1945 or who have died in the bombing of Dresden. They were civilians, having no participation in the war whatsoever. I think that is one of the cruelest things about war, that there are innocent victims on both sides. However, the aftermath of WW2 and how it is treated today seems vastly different in Germany and Japan, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on the topic. I didn´t mean for my comment to come across as an accusation, demanding an apology. Have a great day!
@石川俊也 His critic on how WW2 is thaught and generally handeled in Japan is just that, critic. Just because he says something you don't like to hear doesn't make it hate-speech. Or perhaps you could point me one example where he "spreads racial hate and bias against Japanese"?
I want to share my grandfather's story.
Hungary mostly wanted to remain neutral but due to proximity really had no chance to evade Nazi Germany's political gravity, a prime minister even committed suicide when left with no choice. As puppet had to partake on Eastern front against Soviets. We were preparing and finalising a separate peace with east and west, but learning about this the nazis occupied us.
My grandfather was a well liked butcher in our town (60km west of Budapest). Got drafted into the military. An officer friend helped arrange that he could remain home as an anti air serviceman, instead of being taken to the bloodiest eastern front. Eventually the soviets occupied Hungary. Our town was occupied back and forth numerous times by nazi and soviet forces. He did what he could to to hide, not just himself but others.
He was captured by soviets. Taken by train to east, possibly to gulag. But at entering a counting station, when lining them up for processing he begged the guard to let him take a dump. He went to bushes and crouched, second later sprinted as fast as he could and got away. The officer friend once said to him if ever gets captured he should walk 1 km parallel by the highway back home, which he did.
He was one of the luckier survivors of the time, let's say due to positive karma. He helped jews hide during nazi reign. In our street soviets shot at wall random 12 civilians, from this for an orphan he acted as father. He said that big proportion of soviet troops were war torn, even feeble. And that amongst nazis he saw the most frighteningly efficient cold ones. Later during soviet rule's communism our family house of generations was taken by state.
In December this year will be the 10th year he passed away at 92. He was always tried to be positive, humble, never meaning to hurt anyone and for me was the role model of simple goodness. I miss him.
It's hard to deny Nanking when there is frickin FILM from it!!
I dont think anyone is denying it mate
I'm from the US and our schools can vary greatly in what they teach depending on which state you live in. We also have a lot of propaganda about how we conducted ourselves. In most situations the Americans are painted as the good guys. So Japan is definitely not alone in teaching their youth an altered version of events. I'd be interested to see your reactions to both Unit 731 and the US internment of ethnic Japanese.
If their statistics were correct, the Soviets experienced a casualty rate of near-genocidal proportions.
Well it depends. The Soviet Union was a big country
Also、 I love your brutal honesty, I subscribed. I respect you. そしても僕が日本で住んでいました。埼玉県で。
I would've appreciated this video during school too. Too bad education is not usually as enjoyable as this.
ww2 is my favorite subject and from what we’re taught Japan wanted to expand its empire but had no natural resources and America didn’t like what Japan was doing so they put stoped selling Japan oil or tried to make it harder for Japan to get the natural recourses threw embargo’s. So Japan attacked Pearl Harbor thinking if they could destroy the us navy fleet we’d be scared and sign some sort of treaty to keep giving them oil and stuff and the one thing that makes it so bad is Japan sent over an ambassador that day or the day before to have a conversation about lifting the embargo’s and not wanting to go to war so that was a slap in the face. That’s what I know about that idk if they teach you that at all but that was the past that wasent are fight or are war so all we can do is morn those who were lost and condemn the war crimes on all sides and strive to be better side by side as friends and not enemy’s
I wish there are some reasons/ excuses for the attack. Some country have a big land, some have big population, some have natural resources. We made a choice over the complicated background. That was the price of "Trying to be strong Japan". And it was not the best choice...
@@YuyaNipponess Peace takes more strength than war! (but the spoils of peace are harder to contextualize. Like in this video, the author says peace can be measured in the living population)
Thank you for your reaction video, it was very informative to watch.
I don't think that the japanese high command were so inept to think that by sinking 3rd of the us fleet they will get something. More likely they wanted to postpone the inevitable, the US were starving them of resources and by sinking the pacific fleet they tried to buy time to extract resources from elsewhere.
In American textbooks we don't refer to what we did to American Indians or to Japanese-American citizens as crimes either (and often glaze over or don't mention them at all). Countries will almost never accept responsibility for their own atrocities.
It's the same in the UK with the British Empire. The British Empire is glorified 99% of the time but the actual crimes are never spoken about.
Exactly, in almost every textbook I've ever seen what was done to the millions of natives is glossed over or the acts glorified in some way. Things like what was done to Chinese workers brought over to work on railroads is barely touched on (if at all), slavery is CONSTANTLY diminished and depending on what state you live in, actively ignored. Good luck learning what was done to Hawaii, the BS we pulled to start the Spanish-American War, the actual fucked up things we did because our internalization of the Monroe Doctrine. Nope, we are heroes, the shining city on the hill.
@Gunter Ringgenberg Taking an honest account of disrespect, violence, exploitation, and abuse our country in isn't hating America. The very fact that many people here at home jump to this self-defensive nonsense is part of the problem. And it's a symptom of being pumped half-truths and jingoism in history class.
@@RicochetForce or the war crimes during Mexican American war
@@Michelle-rdz17 Yeah, the fact that we hold the fucking events at the Alamo as some sort of honorable, heroic last stand is insane when you actually look into it.
I admire your quest for knowledge and truth. All country's tend to try to paint their own history to make themselves look better. So you are correct in trying to get multiple points of view. I wish more people every where would take the time you are, to learn more history. I think the more we know about world history the less likely we are to commit the same mistakes from the past.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific theatre of WW2. I recall when we were younger, he used to tell us stories about his experiences fighting with the Japanese in occupied Philippines (they where cut off and had to wage guerilla warfare) including how brutal they where to POWs and civilians. Even babies and pregnant women where killed by the Japanese soldiers in horrifying ways that it took me a long time to grasp and make sense of it all.
Do i hate the Japanese today? Of course not. Most alive today weren't involved in that conflict.
My only disappointment is how the Japanese government downplays their warcrimes and never sincerely apologized and admitted their mistakes.
I remember hearing about a Japanese WW2 veteran, i think his name was Shiro Azuma, who felt deep guilt about his participation in the Nanjing Massacre. You may want to look into how the Japanese government felt about and what they did for his open confession to war crimes.
Exactly. I don’t hate the Japanese. But the government is wrong in down playing it. They have been... “civilized” (Ik that’s a horrible thing to say but I don’t have any other word) by the US. They expected us to rape and murder them like they did to everyone else. But we showed them grace, honor, and mercy. They learned and accepted those ideals. Now they are a peaceful people somewhat enlightened by the US, and rebuilt by said nation. And that is why we should never hate the modern people of all those axis nations. Because it’s not their fault. We can only call out their government when they deny and downplay the facts. Forgive but never forget.
the moral lesson to learn from your experience in learning history from a broader angle is this one simple golden rule: history is written by the victors and its details are always buried with the losers
this is why you never learned about certain events or the numbers in Japan; a by product of after-war humiliation, the Japanese government was probably too humiliated with the facts to let the people of Japan know about such atrocities
now lets put some context on this: its 1945, Japan just got two of its major cities flatten by 2 atomic bombs and thus has surrendered and the US has taken charge of the political system, you dont want people to riot over certain things and humiliating the old imperial government with such facts as numbers might just cause much instability and you as the new government cant afford to have people question the new authority if the country is to be quickly and steadily rebuilt
i dont think that the fact people in Japan dont learn about numbers is malevolent, i think its simply an old obsolete by product of the after-war policies and i sincerely think its way overdue to be changed as i understand that Japan has many strict regulations in all aspects of life and people there are more often than not very law-abiding even if it means some things are improperly done as a consequence
everybody deserves to know the truth of history, thats my motto
You are a great exemple ! Love from France !
None of us really learned this way. Discrepancies in the way the history was taught aside, RUclips has become a blessing because we have videos like this that will go into detail in creative ways. The key is to make sure your source is trust worthy, impartial, and educated.
All countries teach their own history very carefully.
In the US, it is taught that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan ended the war and were necessary to prevent huge casualties that would result from an invasion of Japan. This is not true. Examination of primary sources from the time reveal that the US 1.) rejected peace treaties offered by Japan 2.) understood Japan was not capable of waging further war, especially considering Japan's depleted fuel reserves 3.) purposefully selected city targets for atomic bombing based on size (both physical layout and population size) and lack of cultural significance (Kyoto was excluded for this reason) - military significance was not considered 3.) timed the bombings to coincide with the Russian invasion of Japan in order to force Japan to surrender and therefore avoid splitting the occupation of Japan with the Russians (the Russian invasion commenced between the two bombings) 4.) did not adequately warn the civiilan populations of the impending bombings 5.) understood the impact the bombs would have on the civilian population including long term radiation effects. The contemporary estimates of US casualties of an invasion of Japan were in the tens of thousands, not the milliions that are now often cited as the official estimate drawn from a speech by Truman (which has no known source).
We all must carefully examine and be critical of how we were taught history within our own countries. We must be kind to our comrades from other countries. Thank you for this brave video.
@Half life 3 "No scholar of the war has ever found archival evidence to substantiate claims that Truman expected anything close to a million casualties, or even that such large numbers were conceivable"
I spent 4 years studying the decision to drop the bombs. I can tell you, without a doubt, that civilian targets were specifically designated, a war crime and a crime against humanity. The combined weight of the USSR and American army would have crushed the war weary, resource deleted mainland easily. In fact, the real reason Japan surrendered was likely less due to the bombings rather than the fact that the USSR cut a path through nearly all of occupied Manchuria in a matter of hours when they invaded with over 1.5 million soldiers on the 8th, the day before Nagasaki was bombed. Don't you find it strange that the fact the Soviets entered the war against Japan in the few days between the bombings is never mentioned? Or that the bombs were dropped months and months before the planned invasion?
You don't have to take my word for it. Pick up a copy of Hiroshima's Shadow, a collection of primary sources from the time. Read the evidence for yourself.
Hey you're forgetting one thing, Nagasaki wasn't the primary target, but the city that was was very cloudy that day and it wouldn't have given such pretty pictures.
My japanese best friend was my schoolmate in California.
He told me they were never taught about the atrocities Japan has committed in the war.
Randomyoko an idiotic youtuber denied the japanese soldiers raping of women in countries like korea and the Philippines.
The japanese government today doesn’t want their people to know the truth about their shameful past.
I had to show my japanese friend what japan did during the war.
I think it's a pity that Japanese veterans of WW2 basically tried to forget the war happened. This has led to a situation where what we know about the war comes primarily from the Allies, the victors. More first hand accounts frim the other side would help us with perspective. One notable exception is the wonderful first hand account called: Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara. An excellent read and one that adjusted my perception of the war in the Pacific. Well done on an excellent reaction video and your conclusion that we shouldn't shy away from this topic no matter how distasteful it can be for fear of loosing the lessons learned by the world as whole after this terrible war
Nice video. I grew up in Singapore and i was thought about the fall of Singapore etc. I had some uncles who were involve in the fall of Hong Kong. So yeah its interesting a Japanese friend of mine who was living in London at that time, we had a few beers in the park and we started about the WW2 and what he learnt and about his grandfather involvement in the Japanese Air force. He was surprised how much he learnt about the Japanese occupation in South East Asia. I told him where i use to love in Loyang/Changi in Singapore about the beach killings and its super haunted as fuck etc etc. But yeah the Japan of the 30s/40s is so different to the Japan of today much like Germany. RIP the many lost souls at a young age on both side of the theatre of war.
Hi. Can you also do a “Japanese reacts to the rape of Nanking,” and “Japanese reacts to the murder of 500,000 civilians in Manila.” Many thanks