Indeed they did. I’ve seen pictures of Japanese atrocities, and they are stomach-turning.
I have long been puzzled over the near-obsession with Nazi atrocities, while other horrors, such as those committed by the Japanese, are all but ignored.
The documentation the Nazis left behind is one factor. We have all of those images we’ve seen over and over again.
And at the risk of interjecting race into it....
Also, the Jewish victims, were European. In fact, one of the observations that Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz made was that when he saw the Jews heading to the gas chambers, he was astounded how in many cases he couldn’t tell the difference between them and ordinary Germans, and that indeed the physical traits of the Jews were nothing like that shown in Nazi Propaganda.
Japan folded more neatly, perhaps.
Germany remained worrisome in the wake of WWII.
And also the peculiar attention to the Jewish people, a major victim of Nazism, is a bible thang.
We don’t have that kind of note for victims of the Japanese.
Japanese people, and those they murdered, don’t control the media.
Because the Germans were supposed to be civilized, but proved themselves to be the most disgusting savages of all.
“I have long been puzzled over the near-obsession with Nazi atrocities, while other horrors, such as those committed by the Japanese, are all but ignored.”
Two main things. One, the Japanese didn’t do the Holocaust—i.e. the attempted extermination of an entire race of people.
Two, the USA, esp. 75 years ago, had extensive European heritage...and very little Asian heritage. Hence European suffering meant a lot more to most Americans than Chinese, Philippine, or other Asian suffering. Asia was still quite alien to most Americans a couple generations ago...whereas most Americans were just a couple generations or so away from Europe.