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?
It’s conditioned by the Nazis via indoctrinating Germans to hate minorities (even kids were made to join the Hitler Youth) at that time, or true apathy. Unless they were the ones who are being treated the same way by someone else. Like when the Soviets managed to arrive during the latter years of the war, they did mistreat those people (even after the war).
Don’t forget that all of Europe had a very strong antisemitism context. The Nazis didn’t start from zero on their hate of the Jews, and help from the rest of Europe (and America) was scarce because of that