On this day…

Freed Korean “Comfort Women” – women forced to work as sex slaves for the Empire of Japan during the Second World War – talk to US soldiers in a photograph dated the 14th of August, 1944.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women from Asia, as well as several hundred from the Netherlands and Australia, were treated this way.

Here is the official caption of the photograph:

“Three Korean “comfort girls” (captured in Burma), photographed while being interrogated by Capt. Won Loy Chan (San Francisco, California), Tech. Sgt. Robert Honda (Hawaii) and Sgt. Hirabayashi (Seattle, Washington), all of the G-2 Myitkyina Task Force of the U.S. Army.”

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On this day: Chinese retreat in Nanking

22nd December 1937: Locals in Nanking, China clean up after the retreat of the Chinese army. The image appeared in a January 1938 edition of Japanese news picture magazine Asahi Graph. Japan had defeated China in the Battle of Nanking earlier in the month.

Despite promises that civilians wouldn’t be harmed, by the time the image was published Japanese soldiers had killed between 40 000 and 300 000 people in what would become known as the Rape of Nanking, or the Nanking Massacre.

On this day: Prisoners of War in Ukraine

28th July 1941: Red Army soldiers captured by the Nazis during food distribution at a  camp in occupied Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

In contrast to their treatment of British and American prisoners, the Germans employed a policy of deliberately mistreating Soviet prisoners of war, which resulted in 3-3.5 million deaths – an estimated 57% of all soldiers captured.

From the German Federal Archives.

On this day: a war crime in progress

This photograph, dated the 17th of July, 1941, is of Romanian soldiers marching Jewish women and children from their homes. It is listed as evidence of a war crime in progress.

Romania aligned themselves with Nazi Germany in the Second World War, and played a large part in the invasions of, and fighting in, Ukraine and Stalingrad (Russia).

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On this day…

The New York Times reports on Serbian massacres of Albanian citizens in the First Balkan War. 31st December, 1912.

Christmas as a prisoner of war.

The Chungkai Camp was operated by the Japanese during World War Two, and prisoners – including soldiers from Britain and the Commonwealth – were made to work on the Burma–Thailand Railway.

This “Christmas card” is in the collection of London’s Imperial War Museum, and was created in either 1943 or 1944. It depicts Father Christmas in a loincloth, carrying a sack of presents through a bamboo fence.

It was very dangerous to make images while a prisoner in the camp. One prisoner, Jack Chalker, reported his sketches of camp life being discovered by a Korean guard. Chalker was beaten for days as punishment.

On this day: the birth of “Axis Sally”

American woman Mildred Gillars, nicknamed “Axis Sally” for the prominent role she played broadcasting Nazi propaganda during World War Two, was born on the 29^th of November, 1900.

Born in Maine, but moving to Ohio as a child, Gillars moved to Germany to study in 1934, and then later obtained work as an English teacher in Berlin.

As a young actress in America in the 1920s. X

By 1940, she was working as an announcer for Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft: German State Radio.

Along with an Italian-American woman by the name of Rita Zucca, who performed the same work for Mussolini in Fascist Italy, she was dubbed “Axis Sally” for her anti-American propaganda that was broadcast to US troops once her home country joined the war.

Gillars’ broadcasts told stories of wives and sweethearts at home who cheated with other men while the troops were away, and spread defeatist propaganda to try and destroy American morale.

At the end of the war “Wanted” posters for Gillars were put up around Berlin. Once she was found and arrested in 1946 she was returned to the United States, where she was put on trial for treason.

The New York Times announces that Mildred Gillars is to stand trial for treason. X

She was eventually convicted of treason for a broadcast titled Vision Of Invasion, and spent twelve years in prison before being released on parole.

The FBI escorts Gillars to her trial in 1949. X

Gillars went on to live in a convent and work as a schoolteacher, before dying of cancer in 1988.

Her fellow “Sally”, Rita Zucca, spent nine months in an Italian prison, and – having given up her American citizenship – was barred from the United States.

On this day: the execution of Henry Wirz

Henry Wirz, a Swiss-born Confederate commandant of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter), was executed in the shadow of the US Capitol on the 10th of November, 1865.

He was only one of two men executed for war crimes in the American Civil War.

Today the US Supreme Court sits on the site of the execution.

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On this day: Hungary’s Arrow Cross Party takes power

The flag of the Arrow Cross

Very similar to Germany’s Nazi Party, Hungary’s Arrow Cross party took power on the 15th of October, 1944.

Following similar ideas to Hitler, during Arrow Cross’ reign thousands of people died, and tens of thousands of people were deported.

Just as the Nazis did, party members believed in a “master race”. Their view of this race included Hungarians and Germans. Ironically, the party’s views on race clashed with Hitler’s plans for central Europe.

Jewish victims of Arrow Cross anti-Semitism. X

By early 1945, Arrow Cross had almost lost power. After World War Two had ended, members of the party were tried on war crimes.

Day of Remembrance

The 23rd of August is the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

The image below depicts Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia attacking Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus and Georgia.