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Obama To Become First US President To Visit Hiroshima Since 1945 Nuclear Attack (independent.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: The White House announced U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting American President to do so since the city was destroyed in 1945 by a U.S. nuclear bomb. President Obama and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the city on May 27th "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement. Obama said he hoped to visit both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he first visited Japan in November 2009. "The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world, and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," President Obama said at the time. At least 140,000 people died from the nuclear attack on Hiroshima on August 9, 1945. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic weapon on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered to Allied forces within a week after that second attack.
I believe the reason for the different awareness of WW2 atrocities committed by Germany and Japan amount mainly to cultural differences, but also the generally higher focus and interest in Europe as opposed to the far east, coupled with a well organized Jewish community that naturally has a high interest in clearing up and highlighting the events that took place.
If you had to describe German culture in one word, it would have to be "pragmatic".In the face of overwhelming evidence on the atrocities committed by the Nazis (which many Germans where blissfully unaware of), the only way forward was to accept the facts for what they were, soak in all the guilt and make the best possible thing of it by keeping the memory alive and doing the very best that something similar never happens again. Now it has relaxed somewhat, but throughout the 80's and 90's there were critical documentaries about WW2 and the atrocities on the Nazis in German TV practically every week, and this was also a big topic for all students in German schools.
Japan on the other hand, as most other far-east cultures, has this very important cultural theme of upholding hohor and not losing face. Even when it is irrefutably clear that mistakes are made or something is not right, the Japanese way is to ignore it as much as possible and do business as usual, so that nobody has to lose face (least of all the Japanese culture itself). This is essential, as losing honor, in traditional Japanese interpretation, would basically mean that you should kill yourself. While Japan has westernized and modernized over the last decades, there are still many nationalist elements in Japanese society that do their best trying to silence any voices about Japanese WW2 atrocities while at the same time promoting the theme of the "honorable" and "brave" soldiers who sacrificed themselves for the Japanese Empire.
So obviously, we have two very different ways of dealing with the past here. Then, as I said earlier, there was also the Jewish community actively working to promote awareness for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, something which was lacking in Asia for the Japanese atrocities. The Chinese and Koreans, the main candidates for this endeavor, where too busy with their own problems after WW2.
About 15% of the people killed in the Hiroshima atomic bombing were Koreans brought over as a slave labor force. They're just classified as Japanese deaths because Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910 and Korea politically ceased to exist. That didn't stop the Japanese from denying them health benefits for surviving the atomic bombings.
On a personal level, Japanese soldiers forced my grandmother to watch as they raped then killed her sister and niece. All as a ploy to coerce my grandfather (the village doctor) into treating their commanding officer. That's the sort of stuff the people against the atomic bombings are advocating the Allies should have let continue for who knows how many more months.