Posts Tagged : WWII

남경대학살(난징대학살) (1937-1938)
October 5, 2021 in 민간인 학살

제 2차 세계대전에서 나치는 수천 명의 비(非)유대계 유럽인들을 무차별적으로 학살했습니다. 일본 또한 마찬가지로 한국인(조선인)들에만 한하여 학살하지 않았습니다.

일본의 중국 침략 도중 30만 명이 넘는 민간인을 살해한 남경대학살은 20세기 일본이 저지른 최악의 사건 중 하나로 여겨집니다. 남경대학살은 1937년 12월부터 1938년 1월까지 6주간 자행되었습니다. 일본군은 중국을 위협하기 위해 통보 없이 남경을 침략했으며 그 즉시 민간인에 대한 잔인한 행보를 보이기 시작했습니다. 일본군들은 영유아를 공중으로 던지고 창으로 찔러 그들을 땅에 떨어뜨려 죽였으며, 이는 많은 군인들로부터 “스포츠”로 여겨졌고 이 행위를 즐기는 이들 또한 있었습니다. 8만여 명의 전 연령대의 중국 여성들이 강간당했고, 일본군들은 가족들을 죽이기 전에 근친상간을 강요하기도 했습니다. 남경대학살 당시 일본의 잔혹한 행위는 상상을 초월했습니다.

남경대학살의 주요 인물들은 제 2차 세계대전이 끝난 후 처형되었지만 중국 정부를 향한 추가적인 보상이나 사과는 없었습니다. 중국은 꾸준히 일본 정부에 공식적인 사과를 요구했지만, 일본은 아직까지 과거를 인정하지 않고 있으며, NHK와 같은 국영 TV 네트워크에서는 남경대학살을 부인하기까지 했습니다.

참고 자료

Choo, J. (2014, February 6). ‘Nanjing Dae hak sal Bu jeong ha neun Il bon’ …. Joong guk Jeon Bang Oui Dae Eung [‘Japan denying the Rape of Nanking’ …. China takes action]. The Asia Today. Retrieved from http://www.asiatoday.co.kr/view.php?key=935451

Furtado, P. (2012). 1001 Days That Shaped the World. New York, NY: Barrons Educational Series.

Jung, J. (1999). It chu jin Holocaust [Forgotten Holocaust]. [Review of the book The Rape of Nanking, by I. Chang]. Saenggak –eh Namu [Tree of Thinking]. Retrieved from http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/402915

Nam, J. (2012). Joong guk sa Digest 100 [The Chinese History Digest 100]. Seoul: Garam.

마루타 인체 실험
October 5, 2021 in 민간인 학살

제 2차 세계대전에서 나치 의사들은 독극물 주사와 생식기 제거 같은 인체 실험을 유대인들에게 가했습니다. 마찬가지로 일본 또한 아시아의 전쟁 포로들을 대상으로 잔혹한 인체 실험을 가했습니다.

제 2차 세계대전에서 731 부대는 세균병기를 개발하기 위해 중국, 러시아, 한국, 몽골에서 억류한 포로들을 마치 기니피그처럼 생체 실험 도구로 사용했습니다. 이 포로들은 일본어로 “통나무”를 뜻하는 “마루타”로 불렸으며, 이를 통해 일본이 해당 포로들을 인간보다 못한 존재로 여겼음이 드러납니다.

731 부대가 시행한 다양한 인체 실험들은 가히 충격적입니다. “마루타”들에 대한 실험과 해부는 실험의 정밀성을 얻기 위해 마취 없이 진행되었습니다. 이러한 실험에는 인체의 일부를 잘라내어 다른 곳에 붙이거나 임산부의 배를 절개하여 다 자라지 않은 태아를 제거하는 것도 포함되었습니다. 또한 세균병기를 개발하기 위한 인체 실험 또한 흔히 이루어졌습니다. 그들은 피험자의 몸에 “백신 접종을 위해” 세균을 주입하거나 단순히 말뚝으로 고정 시킨 후 화염 방사기로 태웠습니다. 대략 600여명의 아시아인 남성과 여성이 이와 같은 비인도적인 범죄의 희생양이 되었고, 제 2차 세계대전 중에 최소 3000명의 “마루타”들이 죽임을 당한 것으로 확인되었습니다.

참고 자료

McNaught, A. (2002, February 3). Unit 731: Japan’s biological force. BBC News World Edition. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/1796044.stm

Mitchell, J. (2013, June 3).  Code Name: Maruta – The Horrors of Unit 731. In What Culture. Retrieved from http://whatculture.com/history/code-name-maruta-the-horrors-of-unit-731.php

아우슈비츠 강제 수용소
October 5, 2021 in 민간인 학살

아우슈비츠 강제 수용소는 홀로코스트 수용소 중 가장 잘 알려진 곳입니다. 이 곳은 나치의 유대인 감금과 살인의 상징으로 여겨지는 곳입니다. 나치는 1933년부터 1945년까지 대략 2만여 곳에 강제 수용소를 건설했으며, 나치가 1939년에 폴란드를 침공했을 때 수용자들을 노동력으로 활용하기 위해 폴란드 점령지들에 수용소를 짓기 시작했습니다. 노동 수용소로 지어진 아우슈비츠는 수백만 명의 유대인을 수용했으며 심지어 유대인이 아닌 폴란드인과 소련사람들까지도 수용했습니다. 끔찍한 노동 환경 아래에서 많은 이들이 과로와 일사병으로 죽어나갔습니다.

독일은 1941년 9월부터 아우슈비츠의 수감자들에 대한 대량 학살을 시작했습니다. 나치는 육체노동을 할 수 없는 노인, 여성, 어린이들을 학살하기 위해 유독 가스로 가득 찬 가스실을 사용했습니다. 가스실은 샤워실과 유사한 구조로 만들어졌습니다. 나치는 희생자들에게 가스실로 들어가도록 명령하고 샤워를 할 것이라는 구실로 옷을 벗으라고 지시한 다음 치명적인 가스인 치클론 B을 살포해 방 안을 가득 채웠습니다. 이런 방식으로 매일 약 2000명의 유대인들이 살해되었으며, 그 시신은 용광로에 화장되었습니다. 나치가 유대인의 머리카락을 이용하여 담요와 카펫을 만들었다는 역사적 증거는 그들의 극도적인 잔인성을 분명히 보여줍니다. 화장 후 용광로에 남은 머리카락의 무게만 7톤을 넘었습니다. 몇몇 유대인들은 강제 노동 혹은 대량 학살이 아닌 인체 실험으로 목숨을 잃기도 했습니다.

나치 수용소에 수감되어 하루 하루를 보내던 수용자들은 소련의 붉은 군대가 폴란드를 점령했을 때가 되어서야 해방되었습니다. 아우슈비츠 수용소 해방 60주년에 공개된 문서에 의하면 수백만 명의 유대인이 목숨을 잃었다고 합니다. 또한 아우슈비츠에 수용된 15만 명이 넘는 비(非)유대인들 중 절반 이상이 목숨을 잃었다고 합니다.

참고 자료

Rosenberg, J. Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp. In About.com. Retrieved from http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/auschwitz.htm

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2013, June 10). Nazi Camps. In Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144

아인자츠그루펜(나치 특수작전부대)
October 5, 2021 in 민간인 학살

나치의 준군사조직인 아인자츠그루펜은 600만 명 이상의 유대인을 학살한 홀로코스트에서 주된 역할을 했습니다. 아인자츠그루펜은 독일어로 ‘파병대’라는 뜻으로, 독일 SS(나치스친위대)와 경찰로 구성된 부대였습니다. 그들은 독일 점령 지역에서 유대인과 같은 그들의 민족적인 적과 정치적 적군을 살해하는 임무를 수행했습니다. 유럽의 모든 유대인을 학살하고자 한 나치의 “최종적 해결” 계획은 이와 같은 대학살의 구실이었습니다. 독일인들은 그들에 반항하는 모두를 죽였습니다. 유대인뿐만 아니라 집시, 러시아인, 장애인, 정신 이상으로 병원에 있는 사람들까지 죽였습니다.

아인자츠그루펜은 극단적이고 잔인한 방법으로 민간인들을 학살했습니다. 1941년 6월 독일이 러시아를 침략했을 때 그들은 지역 경찰을 동원하여 점령지에 살았던 모든 민간인을 사살하고자 했습니다. 아인자츠그루펜의 유대인 학살 방식은 나치의 유대인 학살 방식과 달랐으며, 강제 수용소로 이송하는 대신 유대인들의 집으로 찾아가 현장에서 살해했습니다. 살해 대상은 유대인 남성부터 점차 확대되어 나갔으며, 이후에는 나이와 성별과는 상관없이 어린이와 여성들까지 살해했습니다. 살해 대상이 확대되자 아인자츠그루펜은 총살이 비효율적임을 알게 되었고 대량 학살을 위해 유독 가스를 사용하기 시작했습니다. 그들은 수백만 명의 유대인들을 가스 트럭에 태워 일산화탄소 가스에 질식사시켰습니다. 게다가 그들은 또 다른 대량학살 방식으로 희생자들을 건물에 강제로 몰아넣고 건물을 불태우거나 폭발시켰습니다. 이는 비슷한 시기에 일어난 일본 제국주의자들의 “제암리 학살 사건”과 유사한 경우라고 볼 수 있습니다.

참고 자료

Untied States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2013, June 10). Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units). In Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005130

Zen, E., & Lewis, Ken. (1998, April 17). The Einsatzgruppen. In The Nizkor Project. Retrieved from http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/

Civilian Massacre during WWII
April 23, 2014 in Civilian Massacre

On August 20th, 2013, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor at the time, visited the Dachau concentration camp, marking the first visit of a concentration camp by a German leader. There, she offered flowers and bowed to the victims of the Second World War. This was her sincere apology to the Jewish people for the ethnic cleansing of German Nazism and the unforgivable cruelty of the Nazis.

During World War II, German Nazis confined 6 million Jews into concentration camps and slaughtered them in order to create justification for their power. In the camps and during transportation, many innocent people, including children and the disabled, were killed in inhumane ways, such as amputation of their sexual organs. Moreover, nearly 3000 people were murdered in gas chambers daily for human experimentation.

These kinds of civilian massacres do not apply only to German Nazism, however. Japan’s imperialists, also mainly responsible for World War II, performed similar acts that could be referred to as the “Asian Holocaust.” Though it is not as widely known as the German Holocaust, Japanese militarists also brutally exterminated many civilians in Asian countries. As an act of revenge against Koreans who opposed Japan’s colonization through the March 1st Movement, the Japanese government massacred people in Jeamri, indiscriminately slaughtering numerous Korean civilians. Japan’s Unit 731 conducted medical experiments on more than three thousand Asians. During the comparably well-known ‘Rape of Nanking,’ Japanese troops massacred and raped thousands of civilians in Nanking, China. As these examples show, damages caused by Japanese imperialism were devastating.

References

GSBC. (2013, March 13). Forgive but Never Forget – at Jeamni 3.1 Independence Movement Memorial Hall. In Gyeonggi Small Business Center. Retrieved from http://en.gsbc.or.kr/category/sub3/sub3_2_view.asp?sn=152

Furtado, P. (2012). 1001 Days That Shaped the World. New York, NY: Barrons Educational Series.

Rosenberg, J. Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp. In About.com. Retrieved from http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/auschwitz.htm

Untied States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2013, June 10). Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units). In Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005130

Einsatzgruppen
March 24, 2014 in Civilian Massacre

Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi’s paramilitary death squads, played a major role in the Holocaust that killed more than 6 million Jews. Einsatzgruppen means “deployment groups” in German, and it was the unit comprised of the German SS (Schutzstaffel; protection squadrons) and police squads. They undertook assignments to murder ethnical enemies, such as Jews, and political enemy forces in German-occupied territories. The “Final Solution,” the Nazi’s attempt to kill all the Jews in Europe, was the pretext for these massacres. Germans killed all those who defied them – not only Jews but also gypsies, Russians, disabled and the mentally insane in hospitals.

The Einsatzgruppen massacred civilians in extreme and brutal ways. When Germany invaded Russia in June, 1941, they mobilized the local police to shoot all the civilians who lived in the occupied areas. Einsatzgruppen’s way of decimating the Jews was different from the Nazi’s in that they went to their homes to murder them on the spot, instead of transporting them to concentration camps. Targets of murder gradually expanded, from mostly Jewish men in the beginning to all Jews regardless of age and gender, even children and women. As the number of their targets increased, Einsatzgruppen realized the inefficiency of shooting and began to use poisonous gas for mass murder. They killed millions of Jews by putting them in gas trucks and suffocating them to death with carbon monoxide gas. Furthermore, they forced the victims into buildings and then burned or exploded the buildings as another way of mass killing. This case is similar to the Japanese imperialists’ “Jeamri Massacre” which occurred during similar time frame.

References

Untied States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2013, June 10). Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units). In Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005130

Zen, E., & Lewis, Ken. (1998, April 17). The Einsatzgruppen. In The Nizkor Project. Retrieved from http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/

Auschwitz Concentration Camp
March 22, 2014 in Civilian Massacre

The Auschwitz is the most widely known concentration camp of the Holocaust. It is the symbol of the Nazi’s imprisonment and murder of the Jews. The Nazis built nearly 20,000 concentration camps from 1933 to 1945, and when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, they started building concentration camps in Polish territory in order to put prisoners to work. The Auschwitz concentration camp, built as a labor camp, kept millions of Jews and even Poles and Soviets who weren’t Jews. In such poor working conditions, many died horrible deaths from overwork and sunstroke.

Starting in September, 1941, the Germans began their first mass murder of the prisoners of Auschwitz concentration camp. The Nazis used gas chambers full of poisonous gas as a way to exterminate the elderly, women, and children who weren’t capable of manual labor. Gas chambers were built in similar structures to shower rooms. Ordering the victims into the gas chambers, the Nazis told them to take off their clothes under the pretense that they were going to take a shower – and then pumped the chambers full of Zyklon B, a deadly gas. About 2000 Jews were murdered in this way every day, and those killed were cremated in furnaces. Historical evidence that the Nazis used Jews’ hairs to make blankets and carpets clearly displays their extreme brutality. The amount of hair left in furnaces after the incineration of bodies weighed more than 7 tons. Some Jews were killed not by forced labor or mass murder but due to medical experiments.

Prisoners who spent day after day in brutal Nazi concentration camps were finally liberated when the Red Army of the USSR invaded Poland. According to an article that was released during the 60th Anniversary of Auschwitz\’s Liberation, the death toll of Jews was estimated in the millions. Of the 150,000 non-Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz, over half died.

References

Rosenberg, J. Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp. In About.com. Retrieved from http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/auschwitz.htm

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2013, June 10). Nazi Camps. In Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144

Maruta Experiments
March 19, 2014 in Civilian Massacre

During World War II, Nazi doctors performed human experiments on Jews, such as injecting poisons in their bodies or removing their sexual organs. Likewise, the Japan also performed barbarous experiments on Asian prisoners of war.

During World War II, Unit 731 used prisoners captured in China, Russia, Korea and Mongol as guinea pigs to develop bacteriological weapons. These prisoners were called “Maruta,” meaning “logs” in Japanese, revealing Japanese sentiments that such prisoners were not even human.

The various types of experiments performed by Unit 731 were shocking. Experiments and dissections on “marutas” were done without anesthesia to increase the precision of experiments. Such experiments included cutting off parts of the human body and attaching it elsewhere or cutting pregnant women’s stomachs open and removing the undeveloped fetuses. In addition, human experiments to build weapons such as bacteriological weapons were common – they would inject germs “for vaccination” in the subjects’ bodies, or simply peg them down to burn them with a flamethrower. Approximately 600 Asian men and women fell victim to these inhumane crimes, and it was confirmed that at least 3000 “marutas” were killed during the Second World War.

References

McNaught, A. (2002, February 3). Unit 731: Japan’s biological force. BBC News World Edition. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/1796044.stm

Mitchell, J. (2013, June 3).  Code Name: Maruta – The Horrors of Unit 731. In What Culture. Retrieved from http://whatculture.com/history/code-name-maruta-the-horrors-of-unit-731.php

Nanking Massacre (1937-1938)
March 16, 2014 in Civilian Massacre

During World War II, Nazis indiscriminatingly massacred tens of thousands of non-Jewish Europeans. Similarly, victims of Japan’s mass murder were not limited to citizens of Korea.

The Nanking Massacre, the murder of more than 300,000 Chinese civilians during the Japanese invasion of China, is considered one of the worst events committed by Japan during the 20th century. It occurred during the six weeks, from December 1937 to January 1938. In order to threaten China, the Japanese army invaded Nanking without notice and immediately began performing cruel acts on civilians. Japanese soldiers tossed infants and young children into the air and pierced them with spears as they fell to the ground. This was considered as “sport” and enjoyed by many soldiers. Up to 80,000 Chinese women of all ages were raped. Soldiers also forced incest among family members before killing them. Japanese acts of cruelty during the Nanking massacre were beyond imagination.

The key figures of the Nanking Massacre were hung after World War II, but no additional reparations or apologies were made to the Chinese government. China has consistently demanded formal apologies from the Japanese government, but Japan has yet to acknowledge its past and has even denied the Nanking Massacre on national TV networks such as NHK.

References

Choo, J. (2014, February 6). ‘Nanjing Dae hak sal Bu jeong ha neun Il bon’ …. Joong guk Jeon Bang Oui Dae Eung [‘Japan denying the Rape of Nanking’ …. China takes action]. The Asia Today. Retrieved from http://www.asiatoday.co.kr/view.php?key=935451

Furtado, P. (2012). 1001 Days That Shaped the World. New York, NY: Barrons Educational Series.

Jung, J. (1999). It chu jin Holocaust [Forgotten Holocaust]. [Review of the book The Rape of Nanking, by I. Chang]. Saenggak –eh Namu [Tree of Thinking]. Retrieved from http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/402915

Nam, J. (2012). Joong guk sa Digest 100 [The Chinese History Digest 100]. Seoul: Garam.