The Historical Record for December 23, 2008: The Death of Hideki Tojo

60 years ago today, eight Japanese officials convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal of the Far East were hanged at Sugano Prison in Tokyo.  Among the eight were wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and General Seishirō Itagaki (like Tōjō a veteran of the Kwantung Army) who was convicted for his actions in Manchuria and China.

Whatever there is to say about the fairness of the International Tribunal, I don’t think enough is said (outside of China) about the atrocities and hardships inflicted on the Chinese people by the Japanese imperial armies.  Every once in awhile I get emails from this wingnut group based in Japan who wants to tell “the real story” of what happened in China between 1931 and 1945.  They spout off about things like the Nanjing Massacre was a myth, the comfort women “volunteered” (as if separating the word ‘forced’ from the word ‘prostitution’ matters anyway), or that Japanese ‘atrocities’ were fabricated by Chinese nationalists, etc.

Now Chinese museums, no strangers to fabricating history, do have a tendency to histrionics whenever possible.  But many of the atrocities of the Japanese against China have been pretty well documented and independently confirmed (to the extent possible).  Any attempt to downplay the horrors perpetrated by Japanese in China is the grossest form of historical injustice.  The Cold War mentality that dominated the field of history and history education throughout the latter half of the 20th century prevented many Americans from truly appreciating the sacrifices that China and the Soviet Union endured in the war against Germany and Japan.  While reopening old wounds for political purposes is a PRC specialty, this should not prejudice non-Chinese from seeking to understand the era and the lingering effects of Japanese (and other) imperialist aggression has on contemporary Chinese worldviews.

And yes, after this post I’m likely to be getting more sputtering emails from the “Japanese Association for Truth and Obscuration in War and Peace” or whatever the hell they call themselves.