How people back in WWII knew about war crimes committed by the allied forces or axis powers? At the time: it’s not like you can just say “I’m posting this online!”, there was no such thing as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit or Twitter (X) since they didn’t exist in 1939-45. The internet didn’t exist when Pearl Harbor was attacked, so that was only heard from word of mouth or tabloids (newspapers).
Now, when speaking about war crimes that the Americans, Brits or French committed during that era: people were oblivious about it at first only seeing them as liberators whilst overlooking their flaws (due to the propaganda floating about back then). They did kill German PoW’s, but how would the average joe in 1945 know that without the reliance of computers, search engines or social media feeds.
The thing is, how did normal people during that era manage to call out the Allies or Axis for their war crimes without the reliance of computers, social media or the internet (let alone livestream) during 1939-45? Japan did establish Unit 731, where Chinese and Allied PoW’s were subjected to brutal torture or human experimentation. How would people know its existence (let alone what goes on inside) during the 40s?
Unit 731 had vivisections (dissecting a person alive) in which scientists conducted experiments by testing people’s pain tolerance via torture or inject them with diseases or toxic chemicals using prisoners (civilian or allied forces who are captured, but the majority of prisoners are Chinese). Japan today knows it happened but still remain in denial about the topic.
Sadly I know about that. (As another comment: Sometimes you hear that these unethical experiments gave humanity insights that have been valuable. But at least in general that is not true, not lastly because it was shit science by shit scientists to begin with. )
I just don’t know the extent of these things being known in WWII Japan. I would assume it was similar to Germany but for Germany I have read enough to know it for sure that it has been known at the time and not just for a chosen few.
Shirō Ishii (specialist and microbiologist in Unit 731 who is also in the Japanese army) was granted immunity by the allies in exchange for extensive data, research reports, and details regarding their human experiments and biological weapons programs towards the Americans. US military intelligence officials wanted exclusive access to the biological warfare data desiring to keep it out of the hands of the Soviets. He literally got away with endorsing torture towards people.