• simplymath@lemmy.worldOP
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    25 days ago

    Germany doesn’t have Panzers presented as a cool memorial. This image is taken at the shrine, which also has a museum. Half of the museum is a shrine to people who fought for Japan in World War 2 and many of those people are recognized war criminals.

    To me, at least, starting off the museum with a refurbished plane that was used to commit war crimes was, in itself, shocking. Also the gift shop was, uhhhhh…

    Imperial Japanese army memorabilia sold as children's toys

    Like, can you imagine the same in Germany? Little Nazi flags for the kids?

    I’d show you pictures of the sketchy exhibits but you’re not allowed to take photos in them.

    • erin@lemmy.sidh.bzh
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      25 days ago

      ok for the shop but the base role of museum is to preserve history so futurs generations learn and we all advance as humanity. the will to hide the bad things from the past is just a will to hide history under the carpet, it’s like willing to erase history and is no different the rewriting it.

      • simplymath@lemmy.worldOP
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        25 days ago

        No, no. This museum failed to mention the millions of people killed by the Japanese Imperial army at all and blamed the war entirely on Western involvement in Japan. It even claims that Japanese troops were welcomed in Nanking. Famously, the rest of the world calls it something very different.

        Seriously, just read the linked article. This isn’t a memorial to the victims of war. It glorifies atrocities and rewrites history.

        • erin@lemmy.sidh.bzh
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          25 days ago

          I was not answering about the article but your answer that consider showing an A6M at the entrance of a museum something bad. It’s not bad, this plane existed, it’s History.

          • EarMaster@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            Sure, it existed. But context is necessary to understand its significance. If the context is missing or twisting accepted historic events I would say it is a bad thing.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
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        25 days ago

        The shrine is very much a glorification of war criminals. It’s an ongoing stumbling block to Japan’s international relations due to how they won’t stop honoring the people who were competitive with the fucking Holocaust for atrocities in WW2.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Germany doesn’t have Panzers presented as a cool memorial.

      Germany has a tank musuem that shows off panzers, wtf are you talking about?

      • simplymath@lemmy.worldOP
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        25 days ago

        That’s gross, and I didn’t know that. That’s certainly not something I saw at the Holocaust memorial or in Dachau. It’s widely reported, however, that German schooling teaches the Holocaust thouroughly while Japan ignores the Asian Holocaust entirely. I can’t speak for the German tank museum in particular, but every museum I’ve been to in Germany made it clear that the 1928-1945 period of German History was unequivocally evil.

        The article I linked in the OP mentions how this has caused persistent political divisions between Japan and it’s formerly occupied neighbors.

        I thought more about this and realized the Us presents the Enola Gay without context and that’s gross too.. Though the US does have museums on the genocide of Native Americans, Japanese internment camps during world war 2, a national slavery museum and memorial, and there’s been a lot of public controversy around racist statues, so that also feels categorically different than enshrining war criminals as saints in your imperial shrine.