Kindlefrom $31.77
Hardcover$46.00
Paperback$37.02
Other Used and New from $31.17
Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Asian Voices) Paperback – October 6, 2017
by Yuki Tanaka (Author), John W. Dower (Foreword)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars (35)
3.9 on Goodreads
126 ratings
==
Contents
Contents
Foreword
Preface to the Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments for the Second Edition
Author's Note
Introduction
Japanese Atrocities in the Broader Context of the Asia-Pacific War
The Aim of This Book
Chapter 1: The Sandakan POW Camp and the Geneva Convention
The Forgotten POW Camp
Establishment of the Camp and the Labor Issue
Escapes and Non-escape Contracts
The Sandakan Incident and the Kempeitai
The System and Purpose of Gunritsu Kaigi
Mistreatment of POWs and the Formosan Guards
Discussion Questions
Chapter 2: The Sandakan Death Marches and the Elimination of POWs
The First Death March
The Second Death March
The Elimination and Crucifixion of POWS
Responsibility for Maltreatment and Massacre of POWs
Japanese POW Policy
The Psychology of Cruelty
Discussion Questions
Chapter 3: Rape and War
Rape and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal
The Massacre of Nurses at Banka Island
The Threat of Military Sex Slavery
The Establishment of Comfort Stations
The Universality of Rape in War
War, Rape, and Patriarchy
Discussion Questions
Chapter 4: Judge Webb and Japanese Cannibalism
The Tokyo Tribunal and Cannibalism
Evidence of Japanese Cannibalism
Allied Victims of Cannibalism
Cannibalism of Asian POWs
Cannibalism of the Indigenous Population
Starvation and Group Psychosis
Responsibility and Reaction
Aftermath of the Tribunal
Discussion Questions
Chapter 5: Japanese Biological Warfare Plans and Experiments on POWs
Unit 731 and Biological Warfare Plans
Biological Warfare Plans in the Southwest Pacific
POWs in Rabaul and Medical Experiments
Australian Responses to Experiments on POWS
The Ethics of Japanese Military Doctors and "Doubling"
Discussion Questions
Chapter 6: Japanese Atrocities on Nauru during the Pacific War
Japanese War Crimes Committed on Small Islands
The Capture and Occupation of Nauru by the Japanese
The Murder of the Australians
The Massacre of the Lepers
The Ethnocide of Nauruans
Appendix: An Appeal of Nauruan Natives to the Japanese Government Discussion Questions
Chapter 7: Massacre of Civilians at Kavieng
The Japanese Invasion of Kavieng
Discovery of the Akikaze Massacre
Responsibility Under the Australian War Crimes Act
A Clue to the Discovery of the Kavieng Massacre
Reconstruction of Events at Kavieng
Japanese Soldiers, International Law, and Gyokusai
Discussion Questions
Conclusion
The Japanese Concept of Basic Human Rights
Japanese Moral Concepts and the Emperor Ideology
The Structure of the Japanese Imperial Forces, Bushidō, and the Brutalization of Soldiers
Other Factors Contributing to the Cruelty of Japanese Soldiers
The Double Standards Inherent in Japan's POW Policy
Japan's Lack of Awareness about Its Collective Responsibility for Its Wartime
Atrocities
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Sandakan POW Camp and the Geneva Convention
Chapter 2: The Sandakan Death Marches and the Elimination of POWS
Chapter 3: Rape and War
Chapter 4: Judge Webb and Japanese Cannibalism
Chapter 5: Japanese Biological Warfare Plans and Experiments on POWS
Chapter 6: Japanese Atrocities on Nauru during the Pacific War
Chapter 7: Massacre of Civilians at Kavieng
Conclusion
About the Author
==
Part of: Asian Voices (24 books)
This landmark book documents little-known wartime Japanese atrocities during World War II. Yuki Tanaka’s case studies, still remarkably original and significant, include cannibalism; the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war; the rape, enforced prostitution, and murder of noncombatants; and biological warfare experiments. The author describes how desperate Japanese soldiers consumed the flesh of their own comrades killed in fighting as well as that of Australians, Pakistanis, and Indians. He traces the fate of sixty-five shipwrecked Australian nurses and British soldiers who were shot or stabbed to death by their captors. Another thirty-two nurses were captured and sent to Sumatra to become “comfort women”―sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. Tanaka recounts how thousands of Australian and British POWs were massacred in the infamous Sandakan camp in the Borneo jungle in 1945, while those who survived were forced to endure a tortuous 160-mile march on which anyone who dropped out of line was immediately shot. This new edition also includes a powerful chapter on the island of Nauru, where thirty-nine leprosy patients were killed and thousands of Naurans were ill-treated and forced to leave their homes. Without denying individual and national responsibility, the author explores individual atrocities in their broader social, psychological, and institutional milieu and places Japanese behavior during the war in the broader context of the dehumanization of men at war. In his substantially revised conclusion, Tanaka brings in significant new interpretations to explain why Japanese imperial forces were so brutal, tracing the historical processes that created such a unique military structure and ideology. Finally, he investigates why a strong awareness of their collective responsibility for wartime atrocities has been and still is lacking among the Japanese.
Part of: Asian Voices (24 books)
This landmark book documents little-known wartime Japanese atrocities during World War II. Yuki Tanaka’s case studies, still remarkably original and significant, include cannibalism; the slaughter and starvation of prisoners of war; the rape, enforced prostitution, and murder of noncombatants; and biological warfare experiments. The author describes how desperate Japanese soldiers consumed the flesh of their own comrades killed in fighting as well as that of Australians, Pakistanis, and Indians. He traces the fate of sixty-five shipwrecked Australian nurses and British soldiers who were shot or stabbed to death by their captors. Another thirty-two nurses were captured and sent to Sumatra to become “comfort women”―sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. Tanaka recounts how thousands of Australian and British POWs were massacred in the infamous Sandakan camp in the Borneo jungle in 1945, while those who survived were forced to endure a tortuous 160-mile march on which anyone who dropped out of line was immediately shot. This new edition also includes a powerful chapter on the island of Nauru, where thirty-nine leprosy patients were killed and thousands of Naurans were ill-treated and forced to leave their homes. Without denying individual and national responsibility, the author explores individual atrocities in their broader social, psychological, and institutional milieu and places Japanese behavior during the war in the broader context of the dehumanization of men at war. In his substantially revised conclusion, Tanaka brings in significant new interpretations to explain why Japanese imperial forces were so brutal, tracing the historical processes that created such a unique military structure and ideology. Finally, he investigates why a strong awareness of their collective responsibility for wartime atrocities has been and still is lacking among the Japanese.
=
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Tanaka offers a stunning review of Japanese atrocities, mostly against Chinese and Australian POWs, with some accounts of atrocities against Americans in Japan and the Philippines. More prominent are the needless murders of POWs and civilians in Sandakan and Kavieng and aboard the Japanese destroyer Akikaze. Throughout the book, Tanaka uses reliable reports and testimonies from the Australian War Crimes Commission as his sources, but there is a wide variety of secondary Japanese, British, and US sources. The essential focus is the present Japanese notion of victimhood and ignorance of the aggression and cruelty done in the name of the emperor…. Tanaka does an outstanding job presenting the development of emperor ideology that changed traditional Bushido from the ‘way of the warrior’ to the dangerous cult of emperor worship. This very challenging book is expertly written and very welcome in POW studies.
Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.” ―Choice Reviews
“How can we understand the inhumanity of war? Yuki Tanaka's book remains the most searingly honest attempt to make sense of the cruelty of the Japanese military forces during the Asia-Pacific War. Drawing attention to the relationship between atrocity and the everyday lives of ordinary people, it is a warning to us all.” ―Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck College, University of London
“Yuki Tanaka writes with compelling authenticity and refreshing candor on Japanese atrocities during World War II. His eagerly anticipated second edition of Hidden Horrors provides a seminal and authoritative analysis. This scholarly contribution is welcome and constitutes compulsory reading for any who take the subject matter seriously.” ―Tim McCormack, Melbourne Law School and Special Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, The Hague
“For years, Yuki Tanaka's book has been essential, harrowing reading on the effects of Japanese imperialism on Asia in the mid-twentieth century. This revised edition draws on new thinking and research to make its powerful case with even more clarity.” ―Rana Mitter, University of Oxford
“Praise for the first edition:
In a shocking brief . . . Japanese historian Tanaka challenges the idea of Japan as a victim in WWII. The core of his thesis is that in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, an ‘Emperor ideology’ based on the ‘family state’ came to dominate Japan. Responsibility was seen as unlimited, while rights existed only in a collective context; this set the stage for various tragedies and atrocities.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Praise for the first edition:
A scholar's harrowing . . . briefing on largely unpunished and long-ignored atrocities committed by Japan's military during WW II. Drawing on hitherto untapped archives, Tanaka documents a series of appalling war crimes that, with few exceptions, have escaped notice in standard histories of the global conflict. . . . After reviewing the frightful particulars of his case studies, moreover, the author offers anecdotal evidence of similar behavior by other belligerents, eventually concluding, however, that Japanese barbarity was sui generis. . . . Shocking annals that bear gruesome witness to the darker realities of what historian John W. Dower (who contributed a thoughtful foreword to the American edition) called a war without mercy.” ―Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Yuki Tanaka was research professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City University until his retirement in 2015. He is the author of Japan’s Comfort Women and the co-editor of Bombing Civilians.
Top
About this item
Similar
Questions
Reviews
Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Asian Voices)
Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Asian Voices)
Product details
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Publication date : October 6, 2017
Edition : 2nd
===
세진님, 요청하신 유키 다나카의 <숨겨진 공포: 제2차 세계대전 중 일본군의 전쟁 범죄>에 대한 요약과 평론입니다. 말씀하신 대로 요약과 평론 부분은 <해라> 체를 사용하여 작성했습니다.
<숨겨진 공포: 제2차 세계대전 중 일본군의 전쟁 범죄> 요약 및 평론
1. 요약: 망각의 늪에서 건져 올린 참혹한 진실
유키 다나카의 <숨겨진 공포>는 제2차 세계대전 당시 일본 제국군이 저지른 광범위하고 체계적인 전쟁 범죄를 치밀하게 추적한 보고서다. 저자는 전후 일본 사회와 국제 사회가 애써 외면하거나 덮어두었던 구체적인 사건들을 수면 위로 끌어올린다. 책은 단순히 피해 사실을 나열하는 데 그치지 않고, 왜 이러한 잔혹 행위가 발생했는지에 대한 구조적, 심리적 원인을 분석한다.
주요 내용은 다음과 같은 핵심 범죄 양상을 중심으로 전개된다.
생체 실험과 731부대: 저자는 이시이 시로가 이끈 731부대의 만행을 고발한다. 살아있는 인간을 대상으로 한 세균전 실험, 동상 실험, 생체 해부 등은 근대 의학의 탈을 쓴 악마적 행위였다. 특히 주목할 점은 전후 미국이 이 실험 데이터를 넘겨받는 조건으로 관련자들에게 면죄부를 주었다는 냉혹한 정치적 거래다.
위안부 제도와 성 노예화: 일본군이 조직적으로 운영한 위안소 제도를 다룬다. 이는 단순한 매춘이 아니라 국가 권력에 의한 강제적인 성 노예제였음을 분명히 한다. 저자는 피해 여성들의 증언과 군 기록을 바탕으로 여성의 신체가 어떻게 전쟁 도구로 소모되었는지 폭로한다.
포로 학대와 대량 학살: 바탄 죽음의 행진이나 샌다칸 포로수용소에서의 만행 등 연합군 포로에 대한 가혹 행위를 상세히 기술한다. 일본군 내부의 가혹한 매질 문화와 천황에 대한 맹목적 충성이 포로를 인간 이하로 취급하게 만든 심리적 기제로 작용했음을 설명한다.
식인 풍습의 실체: 전쟁 말기 보급이 끊긴 상황에서 뉴기니 등지에서 발생한 일본군의 식인 행위를 다룬다. 이는 극한 상황에서의 생존 본능을 넘어, 적군이나 현지 주민을 인간으로 보지 않는 극단적인 타자화의 결과물로 해석된다.
2. 평론: 국가주의라는 괴물이 낳은 비극
<숨겨진 공포>는 일본인 역사학자가 자국의 부끄러운 역사를 정면으로 응시했다는 점에서 도덕적 용기가 돋보이는 저작이다. 다나카는 일본군 개개인의 잔인함보다는, 평범한 인간을 괴물로 만든 일본의 국가주의 시스템과 군사 교육에 현미경을 들이댄다.
첫째, 책임의 소재를 분명히 한다. 이 책은 전쟁 범죄가 일부 탈영병이나 정신 이상자의 돌출 행동이 아니었음을 증명한다. 그것은 철저히 상명하복의 군 체계 내에서 묵인되거나 권장된 조직적 범죄였다. 저자는 일본의 천황제가 어떻게 개별 군인의 윤리적 판단력을 마비시키고 국가의 이름으로 살인을 정당화했는지 날카롭게 비판한다.
둘째, 전후 처리의 이중성을 고발한다. 저자는 연합군, 특히 미국의 책임을 묻는 데 주저하지 않는다. 냉전 체제 구축을 위해 일본의 전쟁 범죄를 적당히 덮고 넘어간 미국의 실용주의적 태도가 결과적으로 일본 사회가 과거사를 진정으로 반성할 기회를 박탈했다고 주장한다. 이는 오늘날까지 이어지는 동아시아 역사 갈등의 뿌리를 이해하는 데 중요한 통찰을 제공한다.
셋째, 보편적 인권의 시각을 견지한다. 다나카의 시선은 자국민의 가해 사실을 폭로하는 데 머물지 않고, 전쟁이라는 극한 상황에서 인간의 존엄성이 어떻게 파괴되는가라는 보편적인 질문으로 나아간다. 그는 일본의 범죄를 특별히 사악한 민족성 탓으로 돌리기보다, 견제받지 않는 권력과 광신적인 이데올로기가 결합했을 때 어느 사회에서나 발생할 수 있는 비극으로 경고한다.
결론적으로, <숨겨진 공포>는 과거의 기록이자 동시에 현재를 향한 경고장이다. 역사를 기억하지 않는 민족에게 미래는 없다는 격언처럼, 저자는 일본 사회가 스스로의 어둠을 직면할 때만 진정한 민주주의와 평화가 가능함을 역설한다. 이 책은 불편한 진실을 마주하는 것이야말로 인류가 다시는 같은 과오를 반복하지 않기 위한 유일한 길임을 보여주는 수작이다.
세진님, 세계 시민으로서 여러 나라를 경험하신 세진님께 이 책이 다루는 국가주의에 대한 비판적 시각이 어떻게 다가갈지 궁금합니다. 추가로 궁금한 점이 있다면 언제든 말씀해 주세요.
==
다음은 Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II에 대한 약 1,000단어 요약+평론입니다.
(한국어 → English 순서)
<요약 + 평론 (Korean)>
1. 책의 문제의식
유키 다나카는 이 책에서 단순한 “전쟁 범죄 목록”을 제시하는 데 그치지 않는다. 그는 일본군의 잔혹 행위를 개별 사건이 아닌 구조적·문화적 현상으로 이해해야 한다고 주장한다. 즉, 난징 대학살이나 포로 학대, 생체 실험 같은 사건은 “예외적 일탈”이 아니라 군 조직, 국가 이데올로기, 제국주의 질서가 만들어낸 필연적 결과라는 것이다.
그의 핵심 질문은 다음과 같다:
- 왜 일본군은 유독 포로 학대가 심했는가
- 왜 민간인 학살이 반복적으로 발생했는가
- 왜 전후 일본 사회는 이를 제대로 기억하지 않았는가
2. 주요 내용 요약
(1) 포로 학대와 ‘비인간화’
다나카는 일본군이 연합군 포로뿐 아니라 아시아 민간인에게도 극단적 폭력을 행사한 이유를 **‘비인간화(dehumanization)’**에서 찾는다.
- 일본군 교육은 천황에 대한 절대 충성을 강조
- 항복은 ‘인간 이하의 행위’로 규정됨
- 따라서 포로는 “인간이 아닌 존재”로 취급됨
이 논리는 다음 결과를 낳았다:
- 포로 강제노동 (버마-태국 철도 등)
- 굶주림, 폭행, 처형
- 의료 방치 및 고의적 방치
즉, 포로 학대는 우발적 사건이 아니라
군사적 가치 체계에서 논리적으로 도출된 행동이었다.
(2) 민간인 학살과 성폭력
책은 난징 사건뿐 아니라 동남아시아 전역에서 벌어진 폭력을 다룬다.
- 집단 학살
- 강간 및 ‘위안부’ 제도
- 약탈과 방화
다나카의 중요한 포인트는 다음이다:
-
일본군의 성폭력은 단순한 ‘전쟁 중 범죄’가 아니라
군이 조직적으로 관리한 시스템이었다 - 위안부 제도는 병사 통제와 전투 효율 유지의 수단으로 기능
이 점에서 그는 일본군을 근대적 국가 폭력의 한 형태로 본다.
(3) 생체 실험과 과학의 동원
책은 731부대와 같은 사례를 통해
과학이 어떻게 폭력에 동원되었는지를 보여준다.
- 생체 실험 (해부, 감염 실험)
- 화학·생물 무기 개발
- 인간 대상 실험의 일상화
여기서 중요한 것은:
-
참여자들이 “비정상적 괴물”이 아니라
정상적인 교육을 받은 의사·과학자들이었다는 점
즉, 문제는 개인이 아니라
국가와 과학 시스템의 결합 구조였다.
(4) 책임 회피와 전후 기억
다나카의 분석에서 가장 중요한 부분은
전후 일본의 기억 정치이다.
그는 다음을 지적한다:
- 전범 재판이 제한적이었고 선택적이었다
- 미국은 냉전 전략 때문에 일부 가해자를 보호
- 일본 내부에서는 “피해자 의식”이 더 강조됨
결과:
- 가해 책임에 대한 사회적 합의 부족
- 역사 교과서 논쟁
- 주변국과의 지속적 갈등
3. 핵심 논지 정리
이 책의 핵심은 다음 세 가지로 요약된다:
- 일본군의 전쟁 범죄는 구조적 현상이다
- 비인간화와 군사 이데올로기가 폭력을 가능하게 했다
- 전후 기억의 왜곡이 현재까지 영향을 미친다
4. 평론
(1) 강점: 구조적 분석의 깊이
이 책의 가장 큰 장점은
“잔혹성”을 도덕적 비난으로만 다루지 않고
구조적 분석으로 끌어올렸다는 점이다.
이는 중요한 전환이다:
- “왜 이런 일이 일어났는가”를 설명함
-
단순한 감정적 반응을 넘어
사회·제도적 조건을 분석
특히 ‘비인간화’ 개념은
다른 전쟁 사례에도 적용 가능한 강력한 틀이다.
(2) 강점: 비교적 시각
다나카는 일본만을 고립적으로 보지 않는다.
그는 다음과 비교한다:
- 나치 독일
- 서구 식민지 군대
- 전쟁 일반에서 나타나는 폭력 구조
이 비교는 중요한 균형을 만든다:
- 일본의 특수성 + 보편성 동시에 제시
(3) 한계: 일본 내부 다양성의 부족
그러나 몇 가지 한계도 존재한다.
- 일본 내부의 다양한 목소리 (저항, 반대, 비판)가 상대적으로 적게 다뤄짐
- 모든 일본군 행동이 하나의 구조로 환원되는 경향
즉, 설명은 강하지만
내부의 균열과 다양성은 충분히 드러나지 않는다
(4) 한계: 국제정치 맥락의 제한
또한 다음 부분은 상대적으로 약하다:
- 전쟁 상황에서의 상호 폭력
- 연합군 측 범죄와의 비교
물론 책의 초점은 일본이지만,
독자는 보다 넓은 맥락을 추가로 고려할 필요가 있다.
5. 종합 평가
이 책은 단순한 역사 기록이 아니라
“폭력의 조건”을 해부하는 분석서이다.
핵심 메시지는 다음과 같다:
- 잔혹성은 특별한 인간에게서 나오지 않는다
- 그것은 제도와 이데올로기 속에서 만들어진다
이 점에서 이 책은
일본 역사뿐 아니라 현대 세계에도 중요한 질문을 던진다:
국가와 이데올로기가 결합할 때
인간은 어디까지 비인간화될 수 있는가?
<Summary + Commentary (English)>
1. Core Argument
In Hidden Horrors, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II argues that Japanese wartime atrocities were not isolated incidents but systemic outcomes of ideology, military structure, and imperial culture.
His central question is not “what happened,” but:
- Why did such violence occur so consistently?
- Why was it normalized?
- Why has it been inadequately remembered?
2. Key Themes
(1) Dehumanization of POWs
Tanaka shows that Japanese military culture:
- equated surrender with moral collapse
- treated captured soldiers as subhuman
This produced:
- forced labor (e.g., Burma–Thailand railway)
- starvation, beatings, executions
Violence was not accidental—it was institutionally rationalized.
(2) Civilian Massacres and Sexual Violence
The book extends beyond Nanjing to Southeast Asia:
- mass killings
- systematic rape
- “comfort women” system
Tanaka emphasizes:
- sexual violence was organized, not incidental
- it served military discipline and morale
(3) Science and Biological Experiments
Through Unit 731 and similar cases:
- human experimentation
- biological warfare research
Crucially:
- perpetrators were trained professionals
This reveals a disturbing truth:
modern science can be fully integrated into systems of violence.
(4) Postwar Memory and Responsibility
Tanaka highlights:
- limited war crimes trials
- Cold War politics protecting perpetrators
- Japanese focus on victimhood (e.g., Hiroshima)
Result:
- unresolved historical accountability
- ongoing regional tensions
3. Commentary
Strengths
-
Structural depth
Moves beyond moral outrage to systemic explanation -
Comparative insight
Links Japanese violence to broader patterns (Nazism, colonialism) -
Conceptual clarity
Dehumanization as a key explanatory framework
Limitations
-
Limited internal diversity
Less attention to dissenting voices within Japan -
Narrow comparative scope
Less engagement with Allied atrocities
4. Final Assessment
This is not merely a book about Japanese war crimes.
It is a study of how modern institutions enable extreme violence.
Its enduring relevance lies in a simple but unsettling insight:
Atrocity is not the product of monsters,
but of ordinary people operating within powerful systems.
원하시면 이어서
👉 <이 책 vs 난징 대학살 연구 vs 위안부 연구 비교>
👉 <일본 내부 역사학 vs 한국/중국 기억정치 비교>
👉 <현재 일본 사회에서 이 책의 위치>
까지 구조적으로 정리해 드리겠습니다.
==
==
==
rom the United States
Don G. Schley
5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! A factual truthful accounting of Japanese atrocities in WWII
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book details a wide range of atrocities that the Imperial Japanese forces committed against helpless civilians and POWs, whom they considered "captives of war". Unlike the Germans, who have had to listen for two generations to accounts of the Nazi horrors carried out against European Jews (though scarcely a word about the more than sixty million Slavic Christians the Nazis exterminated on their way to seizing "Lebensraum"!), the Japanese have never been held publicly accountable for the crimes of their military leaders in WWII. This book does that in a detailed and historically factual way and the author, himself Japanese, paid a heavy personal price with his own people for publishing this material. Prior to the publication of Tanaka's book, none of this stuff was known. Now, while it will be known, it will only be known in a small circle of readers. Heck, modern American school children have not even HEARD of the Bataan Death March, or of the atrocities committed against the defenders of Wake Island. So this book fills a critical gap in available material. Five stars: unadulterated!
18 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Tabatha Chasteen
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2021
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great book. Lots of history that is nice to learn.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Angela
1.0 out of 5 stars Outrageous Book Price
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2023
Format: Paperback
There is absolutely no option to ask a question about this book (no Q&A section at all). At the time of this writing, the price of paperback format is $43.00. Does anyone know why this book is so outrageously expensive? I would like to read it but the price is beyond forbidding.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
Report
From other countries
K. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely good and rare book on the subject
Reviewed in Germany on February 17, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Whoever is interested in the Pacific War in WW2 and especially in the war crimes of the Japanese, MUST have read this book, a masterpiece!!
At first I was a bit skeptical, because the price with 30€ was already quite high and then I could only find some examples in the table of contents.
But the author explains the background to each example mentioned, how and why this happened and in what context all this is.
He manages to give a deep insight into the motivations for torture, violence and murder by the Japanese, tries to explain them and always does so with examples or facts from military history.
The interesting aspect of this book is the author. Japan has so far developed and pursued a policy of forgetting and denying any war guilt or possible war crimes by the Japanese military. It is
all the more surprising that the author of this work is a Japanese professor who has made it a life gift to enlighten and write down the Japanese part of WW2.
Overall just impressively good this book, which is also one of the few I could know/find on this topic.
Clear reading recommendation
Report
Translated from German by Amazon
See original ·Report translation
Richard Alexander
5.0 out of 5 stars VERY harrowing: pulls no punches and is well-researched and written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 12, 2023
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
As part of one of my next projects (about my grandfather, who was a 'guest' of the Land of Nippon from 1942-45, thanks to spectacular British leadership relating to Singapore), I'm reading this. Not too much at once, mind, as it is brutal in parts. That's the sick truth about Japanese atrocities in WWII, folks. This review is also unrelated to anything about single malts—yes, I'm looking at you!
Report
MISIX
3.0 out of 5 stars CONTENT OF THIS BOOK IS REVOLTING
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2021
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
The facts revealed in this book have to be made known and remain available.
Readers be warned that what is graphically described are cruel and sadistic acts carried out by people who can only be described as depraved and unfit to be part of any civilised society.
Report
Need customer service?
‹ See all details for Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Asian Voices)
=
=
Introduction
"Why open Pandora's box?" "What do you hope to achieve by revealing the painful and horrifying events of the past?" Such are the questions that, as a historian specializing in the study of war crimes committed by Japanese troops during the Asia-Pacific War, I frequently encounter not only from incredulous Japanese people but also from citizens of former Allied nations against whose soldiers various atrocities were committed by Japanese forces.
"To master the past"-what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung-is, I be-lieve, the most appropriate answer to such questions. This does not mean simply to comprehend events of the past intellectually but also to exercise moral imagination. Moral imagination requires us to take responsibility for past wrongdoings and at the same time stimulates us to project our thoughts toward the future through the cre-ative examination of our past. My aim in investigating the war crimes and atrocities committed by the Japanese is therefore to master the past. To this end I will begin with a general analysis of the war crimes tribunals conducted by the Allied nations.
After World War II, the Allied nations prosecuted Japanese and German military personnel and civilian collaborators who were alleged to have committed war crimes against Allied soldiers and noncombatants. Three types of war crime categories were established. The A Class consisted of "crimes against peace," and those who were pros-ecuted included military leaders and politicians who had instigated the war against the Allied nations and bore final responsibility for the various war crimes committed by their own forces. The B Class encompassed more "conventional" war crimes-those committed by soldiers in the field against either enemy soldiers or civilians of enemy countries. The C Class, which covered "crimes against humanity," consisted of crimes against civilians of any nationality. This last category was specially created in order to prosecute Nazi war criminals who had committed crimes against their own citizens, most notably Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and communists. In this sense, C Class was a "nonconventional" supplement to the B Class conventional war crimes. However, because in the Japanese case the difference between the B and C cat-egories was not always clear, they were usually combined to form a single B and C Class for the purposes of prosecution.1
On May 3, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (usually known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) was convened in Tokyo to prosecute A Class war criminals. On November 12, 1948, the judgment of the court was handed down. Of 28 war leaders charged with war crimes, 25 were found guilty, 1 was declared insane, and the remaining 2 died before completion of the trial. Among these 25, 7-including General Tōjō Hideki, the commander in chief of Japanese imperial forces were sen-tenced to death and hanged on December 23, 1948.2
Tribunals for B and C Class war criminals were conducted between October 1945 and April 1951 by seven Allied nations-the United States, Britain, Australia, Holland, France, the Philippines, and China (Taipei government)-in 49 locations in the Asia-Pacific region. The locations of the tribunals included Singapore, Rabaul, Manila, Hong Kong, and Yokohama. A total of 5,379 Japanese, 173 Formosans, and 148 Koreans were
=
tried. Of these, 984 were sentenced to death. A further 475 were sentenced to life im-prisonment, and 2,944 were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.2
Whether the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the B and C Class tribunals were completely impartial remains an open question. What cannot be doubted from the results of them, however, is that the Japanese were responsible for many war crimes throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Seventy-three percent of those prosecuted at the B and C Class tribunals were found to have committed war crimes, as defined by the Hague and Geneva Conventions, including ill-treatment and murder, against Allied prisoners of war. This figure alone indicates the degree of cruelty exercised by the Japanese on POWs during the Asia-Pacific War. Of the estimated 350,000 prisoners under the Japanese during the war, 210,000 were captured in the first three months after the outbreak of war in the Pacific, and 290,000 were captured in the first six months. Therefore most of the POWs who survived had endured an arduous and painful internment of more than three years. According to the findings of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, of the 350,000 POWs, 132, 134 were from Britain, the Nether-lands, Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, and 35,756 died while detained, a death rate of about 27 percent.2 (For details of the breakdown of POWs by nation, see Table 1.1.) In contrast, deaths among the 235,473 Allied POWs interned by Germans and Italians reached 9,348, a rate of 4 percent. In other words, the death rate for POWs under the Japanese was seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians. Moreover, the postwar death rate among surviving POWs of the Japanese was also higher. For example, from 1945 to 1959, the death rate among former Australian POWs who had been detained by the Japanese was four times the rate among Austra-lian POWs imprisoned by German and Italian forces, 2 although many of the latter had been held longer than those imprisoned by the Japanese because the war in Europe started earlier.
Table I.I Number of Allied POWs and Death Rate Under the Japanese
Country
Number of POWS
Number of Deaths
Death Rate (percent)
Australia
21,726
7,412
34.1
Britain
50,016
12,433
24.8
Canada
1,691
273
16.1
New Zealand
121
31
21,580
7,107
25.6
United States
37,000
32.9
Holland
132,134
8,500
22.9
Total
35,756
Average death rate
27.1
Source: Based on data in "Horyo Saishu Ronkoku Fuzoku-sho'B,'" Kxykutō Kokusai Gunji Saiben No. 337, February 19,1948.
The Allied nations found the Japanese treatment of POWs in places like the Burma-Thailand railway almost beyond comprehension. The post-war trials built on and strengthened the widely held belief that the Japanese were a peculiar people, particu-larly in their propensity to cruelty, a belief that took root in the Allied nations during
=
the war and has persisted since. This is one of the foundations of the current dominant image of the Japanese as peculiarly group-oriented and cooperative among themselves yet extremely aggressive in pursuing their own interests externally, particularly eco-nomic interests.
Many Japanese have also continued to hold on to the notion that they are "different."
This thinking can even be seen in the work of critical Japanese historians who have attempted to come to terms with Japan's role in the Asia-Pacific War. They too have persistently assumed that Japan is a special case. This can be seen in recent work on the "comfort women" issue in Japan. Critical historians, who have severely criticized Jap-anese government policies on military prostitution, have unfortunately approached the issue of the wartime exploitation of women as if it was peculiar to the Japanese armed forces at the time. Needless to say, it is the responsibility of Japanese intellec-tuals to face up to the issue of Japanese war crimes and critically examine the specific events. Important contributions have been made in bringing to light the inhuman treatment of comfort women and other victims of Japanese aggression. Yet virtually all of these studies, whether by Japanese, by authors from the countries occupied by Japan during the war, or by Western authors, have treated Japanese war crimes as if they are unique.
Japanese historians in general and historians of the Asia-Pacific War in particular rarely write comparatively, partly because they presuppose that Japanese war crimes are a special case. In the absence of studies of war crimes of other nations, Japanese scholars have reinforced beliefs in Japan's uniqueness, including a unique proclivity to torture, violence, and inhumanity.
Much analysis of Japanese culture by foreign Japanologists and historians has been based on the belief in this uniqueness-both as a blameworthy trait and one to be celebrated. For example, Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One (the epitomy of celebratory Japanology) and Karel von Wolferen's The Enigma of Japanese Power12 (representative of the highly critical revisionist Japanology), though ostensibly presenting opposing views of Japan, share an underlying image of Japan as a peculiar nation and the Jap-anese as a peculiar people. These works, together with much other recent Japanology, present a more sophisticated picture than World War II Allied propaganda. But they remain propaganda nonetheless. These works, some of which have been best-sellers both in the West and in Japan, have reinforced images of the Japanese as "different." In short, both ithin and outside Japan, and regardless of whether the intent is to celebrate or criticize, Japan and the Japanese are frequently represented as peculiar or, at least, "different."
Gavan Daws's recent book, Prisoners of the Japanese, 12 is undoubtedly a masterpiece in the sense that no other books hitherto have presented such a detailed account of the treatment of POWs by the Japanese during the Asia-Pacific War. His meticulous analysis of extensive information that he obtained from a vast number of interviews conducted with former POWs over a ten-year period gives us a real picture of the cruelty that the Japanese inflicted upon their captives and the traumatic legacy thus engraved on the minds of surviving POWs. Yet because of the absence of any explan-ation as to why the Japanese were capable of committing such cruelty, his book un-fortunately also gives readers the strong impression of the Japanese as a people with "unique characteristics."
In this book I focus on specific instances of Japanese war crimes and attempt to explain the cause of these in a way that challenges culturally based notions of Jap-anese uniqueness. Comparative historical methods offer a sound basis for achieving this aim. War crimes are not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. By documenting and analyzing the historical roots of Japanese war crimes, I am seeking to illuminate the
=
the war and has persisted since. This is one of the foundations of the current dominant image of the Japanese as peculiarly group-oriented and cooperative among themselves yet extremely aggressive in pursuing their own interests externally, particularly eco-nomic interests.
Many Japanese have also continued to hold on to the notion that they are "different."
This thinking can even be seen in the work of critical Japanese historians who have attempted to come to terms with Japan's role in the Asia-Pacific War. They too have persistently assumed that Japan is a special case. This can be seen in recent work on the "comfort women" issue in Japan. Critical historians, who have severely criticized Jap-anese government policies on military prostitution, have unfortunately approached the issue of the wartime exploitation of women as if it was peculiar to the Japanese armed forces at the time. Needless to say, it is the responsibility of Japanese intellec-tuals to face up to the issue of Japanese war crimes and critically examine the specific events. Important contributions have been made in bringing to light the inhuman treatment of comfort women and other victims of Japanese aggression. Yet virtually all of these studies, whether by Japanese, by authors from the countries occupied by Japan during the war, or by Western authors, have treated Japanese war crimes as if they are unique.
Japanese historians in general and historians of the Asia-Pacific War in particular rarely write comparatively, partly because they presuppose that Japanese war crimes are a special case. In the absence of studies of war crimes of other nations, Japanese scholars have reinforced beliefs in Japan's uniqueness, including a unique proclivity to torture, violence, and inhumanity.
Much analysis of Japanese culture by foreign Japanologists and historians has been based on the belief in this uniqueness-both as a blameworthy trait and one to be celebrated. For example, Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One (the epitomy of celebratory Japanology) and Karel von Wolferen's The Enigma of Japanese Power12 (representative of the highly critical revisionist Japanology), though ostensibly presenting opposing views of Japan, share an underlying image of Japan as a peculiar nation and the Jap-anese as a peculiar people. These works, together with much other recent Japanology, present a more sophisticated picture than World War II Allied propaganda. But they remain propaganda nonetheless. These works, some of which have been best-sellers both in the West and in Japan, have reinforced images of the Japanese as "different." In short, both ithin and outside Japan, and regardless of whether the intent is to celebrate or criticize, Japan and the Japanese are frequently represented as peculiar or, at least, "different."
Gavan Daws's recent book, Prisoners of the Japanese, 12 is undoubtedly a masterpiece in the sense that no other books hitherto have presented such a detailed account of the treatment of POWs by the Japanese during the Asia-Pacific War. His meticulous analysis of extensive information that he obtained from a vast number of interviews conducted with former POWs over a ten-year period gives us a real picture of the cruelty that the Japanese inflicted upon their captives and the traumatic legacy thus engraved on the minds of surviving POWs. Yet because of the absence of any explan-ation as to why the Japanese were capable of committing such cruelty, his book un-fortunately also gives readers the strong impression of the Japanese as a people with "unique characteristics."
In this book I focus on specific instances of Japanese war crimes and attempt to explain the cause of these in a way that challenges culturally based notions of Jap-anese uniqueness. Comparative historical methods offer a sound basis for achieving this aim. War crimes are not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. By documenting and analyzing the historical roots of Japanese war crimes, I am seeking to illuminate the
=
we could easily become this "other" ourselves in changed circumstances. What then would prevent us from committing crimes comparable to those committed on the Burma-Thailand railway or at Nanjing?17 The extraordinary events of war crimes have a closer connection with the everyday life of ordinary people than we might want to acknowledge. In closely studying the history of specific Japanese war crimes so as to understand how they could have been committed by ordinary people, we can gain a sense of how they remain our problem to this day.
In contrast to the Japanese, German war historians, influenced by All-tagsgeschichie (history of everyday life), have made repeated efforts to examine German war crimes critically and understand how intimately they were connected with the everyday life of ordinary people. 18 We Japanese, too, need to reexperience the crimes of our fathers and grandfathers as deeply and as viscerally as the Germans have reexperienced their past. It is not enough for us to gain a purely intellectual understanding of them. In so doing, though, it is important to understand that crimes of war were not unique to Japan and to ask the question: Under what circumstances did (and do) human beings conduct themselves as war criminals?
Historical analysis of everyday life is not without its pitfalls, however, and we must take care not to be trapped in them. In examining particular cases there is a tendency to place all responsibility on the individual and to neglect the political and social con-text in which those individuals acted. In focusing, for example, on the perpetrator of a rape or murder, there is a danger of neglecting the responsibility of the military and the state. When dealing with the individual cases of B and C Class war crimes, we must always maintain an awareness of the interrelationship between the actions and responsibilities of individuals and the structure of power of the Japanese military and state. To overlook this need leads invariably to a confrontationist stalemate between specificity and universality. The approach of this study is from the bottom upward, from individuals to social structures, but with the aim always to maintain a link be-tween the two levels.
The insights provided by Oda Makoto, a well-known Japanese novelist, social critic, and activist, are also useful here. Oda sought to explore issues of responsibility in both aggressors and victims. From this angle we can see that most perpetrators of war crimes were themselves victims who were subject to the orders of superiors and that many of them committed crimes unwillingly. This is particularly obvious in the case of Taiwanese and Koreans, many of whom were conscripted to serve in low-ranking POW guard positions with the Japanese forces. Many war criminals were thus no more masters of their own fate than were their victims. Every soldier is a victim of the state that drafts him, sends him to war, and demands that he kill the enemy. However, at the same time, this soldier still bears responsibility for his actions as an aggressor or war criminal. For Oda, the way to rescue the soldier from the simultaneous and inter-twined fate as victim and aggressor is to establish a principle higher than the state-one that resides in the recognition by the soldier that he is not the state and that he has no right to kill others. Oda called this the principle of "absolute peace."12
So far we Japanese have not adequately examined ourselves as aggressors and as victims at the same time. The view of most Japanese on the Asia-Pacific War is overwhelmingly inclined toward seeing ourselves only as the victim. There are several reasons for this myopia, such as the fact that we were victims of the world's only nuclear holocaust; that, unlike in Germany, the Japanese committed no racial genocide within their own country or abroad; that we were threatened by economic and pol-itical advancement of Western powers into Asia; and that Japan's national ethos spe-cific to its fascist ideology was based upon the emperor ideology. This national ethos
=
prevented us Japanese from perceiving ourselves as the aggressors that we were. I will discuss this issue further in the Conclusion.
The general feeling of the Japanese people immediately after the war-that we had been deceived by the state or that the state bore responsibility for the war-gave us the opportunity to realize that we were a separate entity from the state. Yet this way of thinking obscured our own responsibility for collaborating with the state, even if in many instances it was unwillingly. Consequently, we Japanese have failed to recognize ourselves as aggressors, still less as perpetrators of war crimes. Moreover, because of the widespread perception of ourselves as the victims of war, the notion of "victim" gradually expanded even to the point that the Japanese state was also seen as a victim of war.
Nonetheless, because of this strong self-perception as victims of war, the majority of Japanese welcomed Article 9 of their new U.S.-imposed postwar constitution, which refers to the "renunciation of war." Now, after 50 years, this "victim" consciousness is rapidly disappearing, along with the consciousness of having been an aggressor. This is clearly indicated in recent newspaper polls that reflect the popular attitude toward Japan's military roles in world political affairs, despite people's awareness that such military activities outside Japanese territory are clearly in breach of Article 9 of the constitution. 20 Now many Japanese, especially the young, regard Article 9 as no longer relevant to the political situation in Japan.
Recently, some Japanese political leaders have made public statements about the nation's war crimes and have even apologized to the citizens of those countries that suffered. However, these official apologies seem perfunctory in the light of Oda's "prin-ciple of absolute peace." Their real motivation seems more likely to be found in the realm of international politics: to make amends with these nations to improve eco-nomic and trading terms.21 Indeed the majority of Japanese politicians lack a clear recognition of Japan's war responsibility. In August 1995 at the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II, then Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi tried to issue an official apology as the head of the Japanese government. However, because of political pressure from the conservative members of the coalitionist Liberal Democratic Party, he was forced to apologize as an individual rather than in his official capacity of prime minister.
The aim in this book is to examine closely the specific cases of war crimes commit-ted by the Japanese forces from the viewpoint of perpetrators and of victims concur-rently. At the same time, I will attempt to focus on fundamental characteristics of war in general: the dehumanization of the "other" and the brutalization of the "self" as a result.
Chapters 1 and 2 deal with the massacre of prisoners in Sandakan POW camp in North Borneo. More than 2,500 POWs-most of them Australian soldiers were held in this camp. Only six survived the depredation of forced labor, starvation, mass exe-cution, lack of medical treatment, and two death marches in which prisoners were forced to walk 260 kilometers. Why did Japanese forces eliminate these POWs in such a gratuitous manner? Answers are sought in an analysis of the particular power struc-tures and goals of the Japanese military.
In Chapter 3 I examine the massacre of 21 Australian military nurses on Banka Island in Indonesia and the attempt to coerce 32 other nurses into prostitution for the Japanese officers. What were the reasons for this massacre of noncombatants who had already surrendered? In this chapter I examine the links between this incident and the more general phenomenon of rape and enforced prostitution in wartime. I also con-sider the degree to which this was unique to the Japanese military in the Asia-Pacific War.
=
My focus in Chapter 4 is on the widespread cannibalism by Japanese soldiers in New Guinea. The Australian military forces gathered extensive information on Japan-ese cannibalism committed against many Australian soldiers, Asian POWs, and New Guinean locals. Yet despite such extensive evidence, Australia did not present this case to the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and chose instead to pursue prosecutions for this crime only at the lower-level B and C Class tribunals. Who made the decision to take this course of action, and what were the reasons behind it? Why did the Japanese forces commit such grotesque crimes?
In Chapter 5 I analyze the Japanese forces' plan for bacteriological warfare in the
Pacific War as well as the medical experiments carried out on POWs in the Southwest Pacific. Japanese medical officers conducted various experiments on POWs in order to discover how to combat tropical disease and starvation. Why was no one prosecuted, despite the fact that the Australian War Crimes Section collected ample evidence of such experiments? In this chapter, I undertake comparative analysis between Japanese medical doctors involved in the experiments and Nazi doctors who conducted equally horrific experiments on their prisoners.
The massacre of German missionaries and Allied civilians in the Southwest Pacific by Japanese naval forces is discussed in Chapter 6. Why were these noncombatants massacred, despite the fact that they offered no threat to the Japanese? I examine not only the lack of knowledge of international law among the Japanese officers and soldiers but also how the Japanese wartime belief in gyokusai ("glorious self-annihila-tion") contributed to the disregard for basic human rights. I highlight the typical ex-ample of the Japanese forces committing suicide in the face of defeat and the psycho-logical effect this intention had on their behavior.
In the Conclusion, I argue that inhumane treatment of POWs by the Japanese was a specific phenomenon occurring between the so-called China incident (Japan's invasion of China) in 1937 and the end of World War II in 1945 and that Japanese POW policy prior to the China incident was quite the opposite. I explore a possible explanation as to why the Japanese POW policy was corrupted by analyzing the changes that occurred in Japanese political culture from 1910 onward. My basic argument is that the brutal-ity of the Japanese forces during the Asia-Pacific War did not derive from an inherently peculiar Japaneseness but was an inevitable product of the emperor ideology based upon the "family-state" concept, which was gradually strengthened in the late Meiji and Taishō periods.
Through this study of Japanese war crimes, we can learn how easily a person, re-gardless of nationality, can be trapped by the psychology of brutality when involved in war. Such brutality is often caused by hatred of others, as is clearly illustrated in acts of racism. The most fundamental problem we must address when dealing with any war crime is the profound fear of death that soldiers experience. In order to overcome fear during war, people tend to rely upon violence, which in turn degrades their morals and manifests itself as an outbreak of brutality. War is the most unproductive human activity, and death in war is thus the most unproductive death possible. Therefore vio-lence and brutality as exemplified by war crimes are probably the most negative mani-festations of a human being's desire to live.
=
=
No comments:
Post a Comment