Smithsonian Channel. WW2

[HarleyDog]

(06-01-2025, 01:13 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The civilian deaths in Russia and China overwhelm pretty much every other category. We talk about the Nazi/Russian front a bit more because it was still the European part of the war, but Japan was truly awful in mainland Asia. We weren't as involved there so I feel like it doesn't get covered here quite as much, but some serious atrocities that globally they didn't get quite the same stigma from as the Germans did.

I think while the 6 million Jewish deaths aren't the largest number, it's perhaps the % that potentially makes it such a larger tragedy than some of the others. The Jewish population in 1939 was 16.5m globally, and then 6 million (or 36.4%) were killed in 6 years. So while China lost 15-20m people in WW2 which is a staggeringly large number and a ton of loss, that was out of a 1939 population of 517.5m people or 2.9-3.9%. The global Jewish population still hasn't actually returned to pre-WW2 numbers yet, even 80 years later.

Holy Cow. That was some interesting information. TSC (the smithsonian channel) showed several epides of our Navy and Marines island jumping Japan to take over territories for military interest. There were some unexpected battles and some that should have been easy, were not. Japanese soldiers and citizens would fight to the death because of honor. And, instead of being captured, they would commit suicide (seen some pretty disturbing military footage of such).