WWII Crimes against Civilians

Soviet UnionJapan

Stalin & The Gulag Gulag: abbreviation of Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-

trudovykh Lagerey, (Russian: “Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps”)

System of Soviet labor camps and prisons from the 1920s to the mid-1950s

Housed political prisoners and criminals of the Soviet Union.

Under the control of the secret police The Gulag consisted of hundreds of camps, with the

average camp holding 2,000–10,000 prisoners. Although the gulag was not a “death camp,” prisoners were

often worked to death In total, there were 53 separate camps and 423 labor

colonies in the USSR

Stalin & The Gulag Most of these camps were “corrective labor colonies” in which

prisoners…… Labored on general construction projects (building of canals and

railroads) Worked in mines (nickel, tin, cobalt, iron-ore, gold) Worked in logging/timber industry Produced items for war (Tanks, planes, ammunition, weapons)

Used as a form of political/ideological repression Constant threat of starvation or execution if they refused to work It is estimated that the combination of very long working hours, harsh

climatic and other working conditions, inadequate food, and executions killed off at least 10 percent of the Gulag’s total prisoner population each year.

Western scholarly estimates of the total number of deaths in the Gulag in the period from 1918 to 1956 range from 15 to 30 million.

Today's major industrial cities of the Russian Arctic (Norilsk, Vorkuta, Magadan) were originally camps built by prisoners

Women in the Gulag

The camp established in Verkhoyansk (Siberia) reached the lowest recorded temperature ever…… -90⁰F

Asian Civilians: Japan lost 2-3 million & China lost 12-20 million

Rape of Nanjing December 1937: six-week period

following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanking, the former capital of the Republic of China.

250,000 to 300,000 deaths Widespread rape and looting Denial of the massacre has become

a staple of Japanese nationalism (It was justified in time of war)

As a result of the nationalist efforts to deny or rationalize the war crimes, the controversy surrounding the massacre remains a stumbling block relations with China, South Korea and the Philippines.

An article on the "Contest to kill 100 people using a sword" published in a Tokyo newspaper. The headline reads, "'Incredible Record'—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings"

The Japanese troops often burned/buried people alive

“There is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims”

Description of event by Chinese historian, Jonathan Spence

A boy killed by a Japanese soldier with the butt of a rifle, because he did not take off his hat

Rape of Nanjing Estimated that 20,000 women were

raped, including infants and the elderly A large portion of these rapes were

systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped

The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo, or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them

Eyewitness Accounts Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary (12/19/1937): “I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! Rape! We

estimate at least 1,000 cases a night, and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet ... People are hysterical ... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.”

March 7, 1938, Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon at the American-administered University Hospital in the Safety Zone, wrote in his journal:

“The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot. Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. They bayoneted one little boy of eight who have five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of his intestines were outside the abdomen.”

Laha Airfield Massacre – Feb 1942

Alexandra Hospital Massacre: Feb 1942

Palawan Massacre: Dec 1944

Japanese Occupation of Nauru: 1942-1945

Akikaze Executions: March 1943

Sook Ching Massacre: 1942-1943

I-8: March & July 1944

Massacre of Manila: March 1945

Unit 731

Video: Civilians at War

Reading: “What Japanese History Lessons Leave Out.”

2013 article written by Japanese citizen and BBC correspondent, Mariko Oi

Focuses on the denial of Japanese war crimes and how these crimes are presented in history textbooks.

As you read the article, focus annotations on the following points: How Japanese history classes teach WWII Denial of Japanese war crimes How denial of these crimes has impacted Japanese education How denial of these crimes has impacted their relations with

other Asian countries