Lanny
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I hesitate to post this as I don’t want to get into a slanging match against anyone which, I see, can very easily happen with very strong feelings held by all sides!
I’ll just say this! I’ve come across different degrees of very narrow, focused, insular views within members of my own family BECAUSE some grew up in the West & some grew up in the East!
It has been said by many historians, especially about ancient history, that history gets rewritten by the victors: ancient civilisations completely wiped out cannot defend themselves as to what their victors say, pass down & write about them.
With history now seen by many as a lesson to be learned from, survival tends to be what rewrites history: so called victors, over time, learn from their survivors; nations that hated each other CAN & have become respected, at least, or even friends!
But, different countries see history differently & the teaching of it focuses on different aspects. Here, in the UK, I, & my other siblings born & grew up here, learnt about both Nazi & Japanese atrocities during WW2. In Hong Kong other members of my family only learnt about the Japanese atrocities! Indeed my mum hated the Japanese for most of her life as she lived through WW2 in her teens: personally experienced their occupation of China, including HK! Even in peace after the war she never lost that hatred! My older siblings only learnt about Nazi atrocities here in the UK! One of my sisters in law that only emigrated here after marrying one of my brothers never learnt of the Nazi’s: when watching Schindlers List she said, not knowing it‘s based on real history, she could get the point of the film without making it so inhumanely horrible! My jaw dropped: never occurred to me before that anyone could not know about the Nazi’s; my brother, her husband, said that it’s true WW2 history taught in HK schools was all about the Japanese & the East & only learnt about the Nazi’s in secondary school here in the UK! He was the only one of my older siblings to still be young enough to get schooling here in the UK & my other siblings learnt slowly, through experiencing the culture here, watching WW2 films & through the still underlying dislike of the Germans that some British people still felt!
It made me wonder, for the first time as it had never occurred to me before, what was taught about WW2 history in Germany & Japan?
I’ll just say this! I’ve come across different degrees of very narrow, focused, insular views within members of my own family BECAUSE some grew up in the West & some grew up in the East!
It has been said by many historians, especially about ancient history, that history gets rewritten by the victors: ancient civilisations completely wiped out cannot defend themselves as to what their victors say, pass down & write about them.
With history now seen by many as a lesson to be learned from, survival tends to be what rewrites history: so called victors, over time, learn from their survivors; nations that hated each other CAN & have become respected, at least, or even friends!
But, different countries see history differently & the teaching of it focuses on different aspects. Here, in the UK, I, & my other siblings born & grew up here, learnt about both Nazi & Japanese atrocities during WW2. In Hong Kong other members of my family only learnt about the Japanese atrocities! Indeed my mum hated the Japanese for most of her life as she lived through WW2 in her teens: personally experienced their occupation of China, including HK! Even in peace after the war she never lost that hatred! My older siblings only learnt about Nazi atrocities here in the UK! One of my sisters in law that only emigrated here after marrying one of my brothers never learnt of the Nazi’s: when watching Schindlers List she said, not knowing it‘s based on real history, she could get the point of the film without making it so inhumanely horrible! My jaw dropped: never occurred to me before that anyone could not know about the Nazi’s; my brother, her husband, said that it’s true WW2 history taught in HK schools was all about the Japanese & the East & only learnt about the Nazi’s in secondary school here in the UK! He was the only one of my older siblings to still be young enough to get schooling here in the UK & my other siblings learnt slowly, through experiencing the culture here, watching WW2 films & through the still underlying dislike of the Germans that some British people still felt!
It made me wonder, for the first time as it had never occurred to me before, what was taught about WW2 history in Germany & Japan?
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