The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II
The current regime has taken down the page for this memorial, and thank goodness archive.org has it backed up.
The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II honors Japanese Americans who lived in incarceration camps and those who served in the US military during WWII.
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In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.
A quote from Captain Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials.
I was reminded of this quote from this Reddit comment.
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On Gremlins as well as Bugs and Daemons
An interesting peek at the history of the 'gremlin' that also delves into the history of the use of 'bug' and 'daemon.' Apparently Thomas Edison is cited as referring to issues with his inventions as bugs:
Thomas Edison invoked the term to describe sudden difficulties in his inventions; "bugs," he wrote, "show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success-or failure-is certainly reached."
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"Hiroshima's Anniversary Marks an Injustice Done to Blast Survivors"
I told Katie yesterday, I have a hard time getting excited to go see a movie about Oppenheimer. I don't laud the creation of the nuclear bomb. And I think hero worship of that sort is problematic. Especially considering it in light of today, a day where so many people were killed and so many more had their lives changed forever.
On August 6, 1945, the U.S. used an atomic bomb for the first time in history, against the city of Hiroshima. The U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later. Experts estimate that the two bombs instantly killed more than 100,000 people.
But an equally disturbing and important story should not be forgotten—the fate of the more than 500,000 hibakusha, those Japanese civilians who survived the nuclear bombing of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
American leaders wanted information about the human cost of fighting what many thought was an inevitable nuclear war against the Soviet Union. Japanese survivors of nuclear bomb attacks were drafted for study with no informed consent and no discussion of the risks of radiation. Within six weeks of the bombings, U.S. and Japanese expert teams were in both cities studying the biological impact of radiation while saying nothing about their suppositions of its dangers. The survivors’ enrollment began just as the victorious Allies concluded Nuremburg trials of Nazi doctors and scientists, which ended with convictions for atrocities including treating unwilling people as guinea pigs.
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The Laconia Incident during World War II
Found via Reddit, here is the title it was submitted under:
TIL In 1942, German submarines sunk a British passenger ship. They surfaced to collect survivors, announced their presence to the allies and sailed under a Red Cross flag. The U-Boats were attacked by allied planes, forcing the submarine to throw all the survivors back into the sea and crash dive.
The top comment, posted by yeaheah, added further insight:
Rescueing survivors of submarine attacks by the submarine itself was actually pretty common in WW1 and early WW2 until there was an incident that forced them to stop doing it (not sure if it was this exact incident)
It would also be common to just hit the ship a couple of times, then wait till everyone was in the rescue boats, and then sink the ship when it was empty. Provided the ship would not fight back
A reply by DuckDockDank:
It was exactly this incidents that resulted in the Laconia order by Donitz that said to take no quarters as it was already too risky. Basically they shot a British ship that was at the time transporting Italian POWs guarded by Poles so they surfaced, opened their radios to any nearby ships, and flew a red cross. But along the way they were strafed by a US aircraft. They loaded the sub with as much POWs and submerged to escape. Probably one the reasons Donitz wasnt hanged for his crimes since the Allies werent taking any quarters either and even if Donitz didn't order it the Allies at that late of the war didn't exactly made it easy to do so.
By atsinged:
Originally German subs operated under a set of rules (I think it was called cruiser rules) which involved approaching and allowing the crew of the target ship to get to the lifeboats then destroying the target. Providing provisions, directions to shore and even occasionally towing the lifeboats part of the way was common. In WWI the introduction of Q ships, which were armed ships that looked like merchants put an effective end to it. They would lure a submarine in close with a false surrender then blast it as it got close.
I think some German captains tried to operate like that in the beginning of WWII but it was extremely dangerous for them.
Surprise attacks, on the surface, at night became the standards for U-Boats pretty quickly in WWII. It is actually best to think of U-Boats as torpedo boats that could submerge to escape, they were reasonably quick and nimble on the surface and quite slow underwater.
Check out the Convoy attack scene on Das Boot for a fantastic illustration of how a whole lot of attacks were conducted.
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Julius Streicher is an important reminder from World War 2 - executed for crimes against humanity despite never having killed anyone
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the Gauleiter (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the Reichstag, the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine. The publishing firm was financially very successful and made Streicher a multi-millionaire.
After the war, Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity at the end of the Nuremberg trials. Specifically, he was found to have continued his vitriolic antisemitic propaganda when he was well aware that Jews were being murdered. For this, he was executed by hanging. Streicher was the first member of the Nazi regime held accountable for inciting genocide by the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Fomenting hate is still a violent action.
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The history of Tresigallo Italy
Add this one to the list of places I want to visit and dive into the history of.
In the 1930s, the Italian village of Tresigallo was the site of an extraordinary experiment. Wide avenues, tall buildings, grand squares, stadiums, hotels, restaurants, sanatoriums, gyms, and factories were constructed, transforming this impoverished village of 500 inhabitants into a “utopian city” which could be replicated across Fascist Italy.
But these weren’t just hastily built prefab structures; they were works of astonishing beauty, blending the metaphysical dreamscapes of Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico with the latest trends in modernism to create an urban environment quite unlike anywhere else.
I am tempted to excerpt much of the article simply out of fascination with it. Just go read it. You'll find it interesting as well. I did a quick search and it seems no full book has been written about this city's history, which is a shame - it seems ripe for some infotainment beyond this article.
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Yesterday was Fred Korematsu Day
Internment camps are among the worst things in America's history. And it is wrong that in learning about it in school, I don't recall learning about Korematsu. It wasn't until I was out of college that I heard his name, and so it is all the more important to ensure others learn of him as well.
"Korematsu challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066, the decree that forced the relocation of people of Japanese descent to internment camps. The court ruled in favor of the government and against Korematsu in what is now widely considered one of its worst decisions. The majority of justices claimed the detentions were not based on racial discrimination but rather on suspicions that Japanese-Americans were acting as spies."
I wonder if there is a book for parents that focuses on arming them with the darker lessons in history that schooling often overlooks. Seems like it would be a good resource for raising a socially and historically aware child.
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