Unearthing Forgotten Atrocities: The Untold Stories of the Asia-Pacific Theater

Hey, one more thing before you go. There are moments in history that echo long after the last shot is fired.Moments that don't just shape nations, but shape the souls of the people who live through them. And sometimes the most devastating stories aren't the ones we remember. They're the ones we were never told.Today we're stepping into a chapter of World War II that unfolds thousands of miles from the Western front, yet claimed tens of millions of lives. A chapter censored by governments, overshadowed by other narratives, and nearly erased from public memory.But silence doesn't heal wounds, and forgetting doesn't free us from the past. So the question becomes, what happens when we finally shine a light on the stories that were buried?How does remembering help us move forward to reconciliation, identity, and personal growth? We're going to answer those questions today with my guest. She dedicated her life to answering those questions.This isn't just a conversation about war. It's a conversation about humanity, about the courage to remember, the responsibility to understand, and the power of storytelling to transform us.I'm your host, Michael Hirsch. Welcome to one more thing before you go. Jenny Chan is the founder of Pacific Atrocities Education.It's an organization devoted to preserving and illuminating the stories of Asia Pacific theater. Stories that were supposed to be censored or overshadowed for decades.She scanned over a million pages of archival material, interviewed elders whose memories carry the weight of history, and built a global community committed to truth, justice and healing.Authored books on Chinese comfort women, unit 3731 in the occupation of Hong Kong, and built a community of more than 34,000 history enthusiasts and social justice minded listeners. And I'm honored to have you on the show. Jenny, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

What an amazing opportunity that you present to people to to like have an in depth education about history and memory and legacy and families and the forgotten stories that, that really need to be told.

Yeah, I think it really is.The more I think about it, the more I feel like I need to tell the story because I have been listening to PODC and I've been on social media and a lot of the Gen Z population that I talked to or interacted with social media don't even know like who did they don't even know who were in the allied, who were in the axis of power. And it was a war that really affected millions and millions of people.And when I heard your episode with John Lawyer, I thought that was perfect, that I should reach out to you about how like I think it really resonated with me that his journey from battlefield to basically a path of inner peace and how you guys really transformed that into universal healing. So I, I'm so thankful that you responded to my email and let me on.

Well, I'm grateful for you being here and what you provide to the universe because I think that we all need the opportunity to heal. We all need the opportunity to be able to understand what has happened to our ancestors and our people.Because sometimes we don't know that those stories, I mean, World War II is a long time ago and those individuals are slowly disappearing, actually.

Yes. And I truly believe that what is never forget if we already forgot the first time it happened.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I like we're going to get into that. I always like to start at the beginning. Where'd you grow up and, and kind of what put you on this path?Had you always wanted to do this or did you start a career in a different area?

Yeah, I had a career in different area.But when my grandma passed it really, and we found like a box of belongings that she had when she was like in her early teens, it really, it really struck me of what she's went through.And I remember I had my early childhood in Hong Kong and I remember when I was growing up, she will always turn off the TV when I'm watching anime or reading manga. One time she even tossed away the whole box of manga. And this is a lady who doesn't easily toss things away. And so I.And she will always tell me about how the Japanese people are quite evil and you should never believe them and blah, blah, blah.And I thought, wow, maybe my grandma, something is going on with my grandma and I, I never really got the chance to talk to her about what had happened to her during World War II. I mean, like a lot of young people, I didn't realize, you know, Japan was a. Was very brutal in Asia during World War II. And I had.And I went to school in the west. And so I had always thought that it was just Hitler and the Nazi Germany and the Jewish Holocaust and whatnot.And so when she passed away and we found that box of stuff and I think the only book that I could find, the only books that I could find on this topic were like the Rising sun by John Toland and also the Rape of Nank King by Iris Changing. And so I didn't really think about too much about.And then so I thought, well, if the Rape of Nanking had 300,000 people who were killed and there were 30 million lives that were lost in Asia. Then there has to be more than just a story of rape of Nanking. So I started digging into more.I started trying to find out more about what was happening. And I think at the same time Dianne Feinstein was declassifying the National Archives documents and materials.And so I thought, wow, maybe I can just make a quick trip. And I was very naive, now that I think about it, I was very naive because that could have.I mean, it was started out as just trying to do a light research on this topic, turned into 10 years of work of digitizing and really scanning these material because I, when I first stumbled across it, I. And I was trying to find maybe an organization that's trying to preserve history and whatnot.And there's really nothing out there that I could work with who were doing the same thing of telling these untold stories and telling these. And trying to preserve these primary source documents from the National Archives.And when I first saw how fragile these documents were, I thought for sure that I need to do something about it. Because World War II documents are all mostly onion skin peel paper. And I mean, even the Civil War are made of cotton paper.Because World War II really was. People were facing a lack of resource and whatnot. And so they had.And so then the World War II documents are more fragile than for say, the Civil War documents, if that's shocking to you at all.

Actually it is. I mean, you wouldn't think so, but I remember that at least in World War II, they had to, like you said, the resources were very thin.That's why people were giving up a lot. Even in here in the United States, they were giving up a lot in order to help support the war effort, you know, throughout the war.So, yeah, that does make sense.I think, you know, your realization, I guess, that the Asia Pacific theater in how much of that history had been forgotten or suppressed, I guess that kind of opened your eyes when you started going through these fragile documents. And I'm assuming that just inspires you to kind of take a more proactive approach to preserving that, because it was going to disappear.

Yeah. And what's interesting is also that because Americans had occupied Japan at the time, so right after the war.So a lot of the documents that the Japanese had were actually ended up in Americans hands. And so it makes sense why we have to do the research in the United States National Archives.

Oh, that's interesting to know something I did not know.I mean, even I, I'm not a young guy, so even when I was in school, growing up in the elementary school and in middle school and in high school, our history lessons taught us the basics of World War I, World War II, the Civil War, the very basics of it. It was nothing really in depth, nothing about the people that fought the war, nothing about the cultures that fought the war.It was just a basic understanding that these were the wars, this is what took place, these were who were fighting.At least I was benefit during my age, because during my time, because they did tell us who the Axis powers were, who the Allies were, who the Allied and who the bad guys were. Throughout there, I know that when my kids went to high school, they learned very minimal amount of history.When I bring something up about history from the past, whether it be even the Vietnam War or the Korean War, they know nothing about it because in history, they didn't teach it. You didn't teach it.

Why do you think that is?

I think that America doesn't feel I may get in trouble for making this statement. I think that America doesn't feel that it's necessary to teach what has happened and transpired to our history.How it was changed, how it was formed, how it was built and put into place, and all of the world around us and how we all interact, how we all mingle, how we all took part in transformation.I don't believe that the education system here finds that important enough to understand the geological, the geographical aspect of how everybody within the world had some effect during World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the Gulf War, the Korean War, all of those. They don't understand the full impact, not only to us, not only to the people we were fighting, but the allies and the citizens in totality.I don't believe they find it important enough anymore.

And that's so shocking to me because I'm Chinese ethnically.And it's so fascinating that when I was learning history and whatnot, I didn't realize that who fought World War II eventually migrated to Taiwan until I was reading James Bradley's book the China Mirage. And so I reached out to him and now we're doing like monthly podcasts on our YouTube channel.And that's just like a little bit of insight that I didn't realize. And then nowadays when I'm watching the news, people are like, oh, we're going to send weapons to Taiwan and whatnot. And this is. And.And this is the first time we're going to send weapons due to Taiwan and blah, blah, blah.I'm thinking like, no, actually in America sent Billions of dollars to the same kind of government, same group of people like decades ago, and they still end up losing China.

That's crazy. Yeah, I didn't know that either. That's crazy.

I mean I might get into trouble for saying that, but that's a historical fact that that's what happened.

You know, it, it is. I think that the, the government doesn't always share the things that we need to know and understand.I, I don't believe that there's a, necessarily a shadow government, but I do know that there are things that happen that we as the public don't always get direct knowledge of until after the fact. And sometimes not all the facts and.

Sometimes after the fact they cover up what happened.

Exactly.

Unit 731 that I got really deep into because it was very fascinating. I was reading this book called Depth Factory and in addition one he mentioned about how there were human experimentation done on American POWs.And then on the second edition he said no, there's no such thing. And I thought wow, that's like a big, big chunk of his book that he took out.So I started like really reading into what had happened and I didn't realize that after the first edition that he wrote there was a congressional meeting basically condemning what he had found out about the POW is being human experimented on. And so then he had to remove it for a second edition. And, and I started looking into like the United States involvement in unit 731.And that's when I realized that because after World War II and the United States had to fight communism, so then they basically gave immunity to all these scientists who did human experimentations. It doesn't, it didn't matter if they did human experimentation on Americans or on Chinese.

We can't be naive enough to, and I say this in totality, we as humanity in understanding war, understanding what takes place in war and understanding the atrocities of war that do take place. It, it does not surprise me that these kind of things took place.And it doesn't surprise me that they were suppressed by a government so that we as individuals didn't understand the full ramifications of war.I think lately I appreciate the media that had come out and was talking about Ukraine, not, not to get off the subject, but Ukraine, they were talking about the, the, the rape, the genocide, the, the mass elimination of individuals all at once, specifically because of a race, specifically because they were Ukraine, specifically because they didn't. They wanted to eliminate a complete families and so forth, which is typically not brought out. And it hasn't been brought out in the past.That's the reason Vietnam War was as it was. Because the soldiers who went to Vietnam did not understand the full ramifications of war and what war existed.And again, the atrocities, the horrific, the way it was done, the horrible treatment of individuals, the way people were killed, the way people were treated all the way across the board.So from a perspective, that's why I appreciate you sharing these stories that were unfold, that were declassified, because that allows us to have a better understanding of what our grandparents may have gone through, our generations that have gone through, because that trauma transcends generations. That trauma is passed down to us.

And I think even though that these Unit 731 stories were declassified, I really don't think that we get the whole story of what was happening because there was no survivor in this whole unit of unit 731 where they were doing vivisection.And we don't even know about the amount of victims who were in unit 731 because they started to count from like, if they are going to do organ removal and whatnot, they remove the organs. And then they start to count from zero and then to like 1,000. And then they start to count again from zero and then to 1,000.And so we can just guess that there were thousands of victims in unit 731, but we never really know how many victims there were exactly and what the victim's like, life was. Because it's just so many things that you can get from, for example, a sample paper that the scientists produce after the war. And.And what really discussed me about humanity is that it wasn't just one scientist who was doing unit 731. Of course there was a leader. But then the society got into such a. A disgusting way of idealizing what science is and how.What the limit of science is that like they were able to do just vivisection on. On people that, that were alive, for example, by the end of the war. And it was not just unit 731, it was other atrocities too that happened.And for example, in like 1945, I recently stumbled across the Yokohama trial and really like left, you know, really left that feeling in me that this is so horrific. In 1945, in when the war was about to end, there was a group of B29 bombers that went into Tokyo and then they got captured.And then they were sent to Kyushu Imperial University. A bunch of villagers caught them. So it's like even villagers were like catching enemies who were falling into their country in Japan.And these American airmen that survived this crash initially thought that they were going to be safe by going into a hospital. But then it so happened that this hospital staff is in this Kyushu Imperial University. And instead of saving them, he.They pushed them into a college lecture room where they were then vivisected in front of like, a group of college students. And this was like, I mean, and they were basically used as human experimentation in front of a classroom.So it's just like, at what point do we let our society go that, like, Pharaoh and in. Into like, basically our society thinks that human experimentation is okay to the point that they're doing it in college classrooms?

It's disgusting, actually, is that.I think, is that the moment that you kind of understood that preserving these stories wasn't just historical, but it was kind of emotional, cultural, and kind of deeply human work? Because, I mean, that's something I did not know. And to me, it kind of shocks me that this had even taken place. Obviously, that. That's disgusting.Like you said, it is heartbreaking. Number two, because we're human being. Those are human beings. You may be a soldier, but you're still a human being, right?

And they. We move. Like, for example, I was reading this in the Yokohama trial.This is like one of the nurse was saying that they remove one of the airmen's, like, lungs just to see how long they can live.Can you imagine, like a whole classroom of people watching that happen and no one stepped in to say, like, hey, maybe it was just a science, science experiment.And so what's interesting is, yeah, that's exactly the moment when I realized that, like, wow, you know, this is not just history is a part of humanity. And in order to understand humanity, we need to learn what had happened in the past. And.And in order for the past to know, to not repeat itself, we need to learn.

And unfortunately, I think the past is repeating itself to a certain extent these days, and that I think the awareness needs to be brought to the forefront of things just like this, or it's going to continue and probably at a higher and faster rate. I'm going to ask you, if you don't mind, because our listeners and our viewers may not understand what vivisection is.Can you help us can understand that kind of what kind of an atrocity that is in itself? So they.

Yeah, vivisection is basically dissecting a human while they're still alive and without anesthesia.Because some scientists at the moment, at this point thought that experimentation with anesthesia was going to mess with the results of the experiments. So they decided to go ahead and basically cut a human alive without any of the anesthesia.

And I can't. I can't even fathom dying. Dying that way. It. As a police officer, for as long as I was, I saw a lot of death. Not say war death, but.But a different kind of war. So a. Gunshot victims, knife victims, axe victims, you know, suicide, you name it. Of. I have witnessed the death of individuals from various.A sledgehammer, hammers, knives, machetes, a multitude.And every time that I had ever investigated any one of those, it was always just horrific to me that humanity can treat another human being such as that. And to me, it. I. This is something I. I am familiar with World War II, familiar with, you know, who. Who was who. Who fought who.Who were the allies, who were the bad guys. But these are things that. That I was unaware of as well, Even the history that I do know.And it shocks me for that realization to come through with that. I mean, that's just one of the. The censored atrocities or something that was minimized during that time period.Can you help us understand what some of the other things that you found were?

Yeah. So in 2015, I thought to. I was reading about the Korean comfort woman, and. And I thought, wow, this.And the story goes that, you know, whoever were occupying and their woman were then, in a sense, also occupied. So a lot of these comfort women were basically raped brutally by Japanese soldiers day and night until. Until they can survive.And a lot of these women actually perish because a lot of them tried to fight back and whatnot.And it just so shocking to me that, like, okay, I was thinking about, okay, if Koreans have really gone through this, then if Japan had occupied China, then Chinese. There must have been Chinese comfort women.So then I started researching more into it, and it was not really well known that in Japan had occupied Shani because Shani was also like a communist stronghold. And they also have some resources that the Japanese armies needed.And in this village, there were a bunch of women who were then serving as Chinese comfort women. And so I went over and visited them, and they were telling me their story. And a lot of them were very old.And so you can tell that they were not willing to really talk about what had happened when they were younger, because in Asian, there's like, this culture of taboo history. And like, this is not a topic that you talk about, but because they were so old, they were willing to share with me what had happened to them.And this woman told me that she had to bury her, her child. She was, she was basically captured into a comfort station and she was raped day and night for like two years.And eventually she had a child because, you know, that's what happened. That's the consequences of it. And her mom told her to not share that story with other people.And then they went to a cave in the middle of the night and just buried the child alone. I mean the baby, while the baby was alive and just kill the baby. And that story really stuck to me.It stuck with me because I'm just thinking like, wow, you know this.Not only did they have to suffer during the war, but because of the current, the culture that they were living in, they had to basically suffer in silence. And there's additional victims because the baby that was, that had to be buried alive. You know, because of this situation.I mean there's just, it's just like a three part tragedy.

That's. That's unbelievable. It's. I think. Why do you believe these stories are made hidden?I mean culturally from the Chinese perspective, obviously I understand that. Because the same thing goes for here you have certain cultures of people within the United States. It's the same thing.There's things you just don't talk about. And my mother was that way, my grandmother was that way.They had things that happened to them that we found out on their deathbeds that things had happened to them that shouldn't have happened to them. And it was just like they said, it was just something they didn't talk about, period.But why do you believe these stories remained hidden for so long?

I think it's politics as well.Because for example of unit 731, what had happened so in most of the unit 17v1 activities happened in like Manchuria and occupied Chinese area by the Japanese. And it.And when Japan fell in like 1945 and the Soviet Union had then started the August, August Storm Operation August Storm which then they went into Manchuria and then the Japanese scientists like destroyed a bunch of stuff, a bunch of evidence and then.But then the Soviet Union was able to capture whoever scientists that have not ran away at that time and they did like a trial in, in like the late 40s and because the United States was then aligned with trying to fight communism that they said that this Soviet trial was actually a communist propaganda.But it turned out that this so called communist propaganda was actually true in terms of what they were exposing about like biological weapons, human experimentation.So I think a lot of it is political and also you have to think that because during wartime Japan and like Japan before 1945, before American occupation, they had a more Chinese inspired language. Classical Japanese is very different than the Japanese today. And so then there's also language issue. And also like the Chinese comfort woman issue.I think it's like the Korean comfort women are a lot better known because South Korea is like an ally or they were. They didn't fall into communism per se. But then like Chinese women who were serving in terms of that they were all, they were in communist region.So then, you know, then there's this ideology that you need to fight, right? Like we had, America had to fight and had to fight in Vietnam because of so called communism. And so at that time, right after the war, communism.And like, even though that China was victim of the war, they can't account for what they were trying to say because of ideology.And also what's interesting is, so do you have language issue, you have political issues and you have like a cultural taboo issue that people don't want to talk about it until like they're near the deathbeds. And so there's all these three issues that are really, I think, the bulk of why it's so hard to record this part of history.

Do you think that has an impact on the silence? Their silence has an impact on obviously on the survivors, yes.But how about future generations, as I mentioned earlier, because I think I believe in generational trauma, intergenerational trauma. I've had a lot of conversations on the podcast in regard to, on this program in regard to intergenerational trauma. Do you think that's affected?

I think so.I think that's really affecting also geopolitical issues because South Korea and Japan are supposed to be allies, but every Wednesday South Koreans are protesting in front of the Japanese embassy. And so that's just showing how like how deep that wound is.And a lot of Koreans cannot because Korea was actually occupied by Japan 30 years before Pearl Harbor. And so that, you know, they were suffering through decades of Japanese rule.And so I think that really does bring a lot of things into context instead of in terms of today's like geopolitical issues and also intergenerational trauma.Like, I don't think I have ever seen my grandma smile because when she was, when Hong Kong was occupied, her family had to trade in all of their family money into military yen and rice rationing coupons. And after the war, inflation basically killed all these, like military yen, like toilet paper was worth more than military yen.So then just losing your whole Family fortune on a war. It was pretty devastating, I can imagine for my grandma as well. So I think it does really hurt people intergenerationally.And yeah, it's something that's really adding on to like current generation as well is that the today's like Prime Minister Sanai Takeaichi still goes to Yasukuni shrine, which is where they put a lot of the war criminals in Japan. And you have to think that like there's no Nazi descendants who are going to go enshrine their war criminals. Right.And their politicians still go to go worship them. So why is it okay for Japan to do that?

You know, And I, I, I learned from it, from another arena that it amazes me that Japan infiltrated China and Korea and were such, I mean, and just brutal. Not just there, but brutal. Wherever they went, they were just brutal, brutal individuals. Crazy.

And it's interesting because we were doing interview in the Philip in central coast of California and because there were a lot of Filipinos who live in central coast of California and they Survived World War II in the Philippines and they fought. So it's.If you go on the website, you can see Panay guerrilla fighters as a book and they fought in World War II and they were saying that they were a colony of the United States. When Japan arrived, they were so excited because they were like, wow, finally we're free from the American colonization.And then little did they realize that the Japanese were way more brutal than the Americans. So they actually been ally with the Americans to fight off the Japanese.

That's crazy.

It's like, whoops, every, Everything is relative.

Yeah, whoops. Wrong decision. Can we explore like how you turned a mission into a movement and how preserving memory became a pathway to healing?Because I believe that what you're doing is helping people to heal because you're bringing to light things that have been hidden for so long. And we all know that deep down inside, if we release what we're repressing, it allows us to, to mind, body and soul to heal.

Yes, I also believe that. And we just had a conference where a survivor talked about what had happened to her in World War II and how she lost her brother.And she had always thought, this is her words, not mine, that she should have replaced her brother in terms of like dying and whatnot. And Willie struck me the first time I heard her story. And she's told her story now.I had told her to tell her story for I think since like seven, eight years ago. So she started telling her story and I think and the first time she was telling that story, she was really crying. She was really bawling.And you can just tell that it's. This is like, probably one of the first time that she's told her story and really hurt her.And I think the last time that she told this story, she just did another event with us on in, I want to say, November, and she stopped crying so hard. She still, you can still. That she's still feeling it. But I think that just sharing that story meant a lot for her because it. It kind of.I think that she's healing internally and now she's donating to our nonprofit because she really believes in what we're doing and sharing her story. And also millions of other stories like hers about World War II atrocities that people have really gone through.Because a war is not like what you imagine in the movie, that people just, you know, dress in a beautiful uniform and then they go to a battlefield and then that's that. But like, a war is when someone's village got invaded and they have to fight it out.There are like people bleeding on the streets in front of, like, a store that they normally go to. Right?I mean, I'm pretty sure you have seen it as a police officer that, you know, when you have victims, it's not like what you see on the cop show or whatever is actually people's communities being hurt. And so just by shedding the story on that and also like sharing their story, like, for example.Well, what I was also talking about earlier, about the Central coast where those Filipinas got to share their story before they passed away. And now their. Their children would not forget those stories. I think that's a very impactful way that we have been doing as kind of a movement.And also not just that like, a lot of these families didn't realize that their, Their. Their grandmas were like heroes fighting the Japanese, like, in the Philippines.So I think it is also very empowering for people to know their family legacy.

I agree with that. And you're. And you're correct. It's. It's not like what you see on tv, no matter how or what you think. TV glorifies it to point a.A certain perspective and does not present it in the reality of war and the reality of what takes place.Tell us a little bit about the founding because of what you're being able to present, the opportunity that you're presenting for people to have a better understanding.You founded the Pacific Atrocities Education, which you said that one of the individuals that spoke with you Kind of contributes to what was the vision for that and how has it evolved since you started it?

When I first started the organization, I thought that people just don't know about this history because of. I was very naive.I just think that if we just talk a little bit more about this history and do a little bit more research, then the truth will come out and whatnot. But then it turns out that there's a lot of like political forces that don't want these stories to be told.And for example, sometimes if I post something related to the war, I'll either get called names on social media or there's all kinds of things that would happen. So I. That's when I realized that it was more than just, you know, not telling your story loud enough. Yeah. And so. So now I'm not that naive.And really I just realized that the research of World War II, it. There's still a lot more out there to preserve and research on.And that's also something that I had not realized when I first started our organization and when I first started this organization. I thought going to the National Archive was going to be one trip and I can get everything I wanted in one week.And they might be able to put it in the USB drive for me. But it turns out it's taking more than just one trip. I think I've been there at least 20 times now and made a lot of friends.And yeah, it's just because it's. It's like some of the folders are so are.So I would not call it misplaced, but then organized in a way that you would not think that would be organized that way.So then in the midst of like German war crime, then you see Japanese war crimes and then someone who was like researching of like I was like making small talk with this guy who was writing a book about not Nazi war crime and he was like, hey, you might want to check out this box. I just stumbled across a bunch of like Japanese war crime issues and all mixed together. Yes, they're all just, you know, linked together. So.

Yeah, well, and I think you've. You've now don't remember if I heard it or read it, but you've scanned like over a million pages from the National Archives. That's a lot to scan.

And also to put things into context and build exhibitions on our digital archive was also taken a lot of brain power from me because then I need to figure out what was happening in this context of things.

Yeah, well, I think that's uncovered.It changed what you Uncovered changed your understanding of the war and its aftermath, which I think that this institute that you've created, this foundation that you've created, it's giving us an opportunity to have a better understanding of the war in its aftermath as well.

Correct. And also we started a internship program with a few history departments in. In the country. And I hope to do more because a lot of.I'm even get feedback from professors that this is changing their perspective on history as well.

So I like the firsthand aspect of it. I. I had the honor of. When I first moved to Arizona, when I retired from the police department, I got a job at a.At the community center just to have something to do. And while I was there, I met this guy that actually was a survivor from Iwo Jima. And he had fought in Iwo Jima. He actually was 17 years old.He lied to get in the military. And they didn't realize it until after he was on the ship, and the ship was already outside of Iwo Jima, and they realized he was only 17 years old.But as it was, they went, okay, you're here. So. And he said the. That it. It just the atrocities that he saw there, everything that he watched and happening there.He shot down two Japanese heroes, which they patted him on the back for on the ship, but then he got reprimanded for, because he wasn't supposed to be shooting a gun at 17 and shooting down Japanese heroes.But his experience with the war and everything that took place after it, he wanted to document in a book for his family and for his kids so that they had a full understanding. So we had conversations that say, I'm grateful because we sat down, we had these conversations. I typed everything out for him.We taped it and then typed it all out into a book for him, for his kids. And he told the stories and told what happened and what. What. How he felt and why it affected him and why those affected his relationships and his.His. With everything. His. His wife, his kids, his parents, everybody. And he told his story and.And he did that so that others could also hear it and see it. He felt that it's a story that needed to be told. You interview elders and.Because there's not very many left of them, unfortunately, because, I mean, they got to at least be in the 80s and 90s, I'm guessing, and above. What kind of experience has that been for you to be able to listen to me?It was an honor, but it also opened my eyes to have that conversation with an individual that was there, that experienced It. And it changed my perspective a little bit.

Yeah, I think it really did change my perspective as well. That's when I realized that wars are not like what they portray in movies where people are dressed up and whatnot. It's like every.It can happen every to everyday life. I mean, people who just trying to live their lives. And it really is an honor for me to talk to these people who have survived.Like that's a world event that had happened. And also your Iwo Jima story, it's actually very common at the time for soldiers to pretend.I mean, I was reading this affidavits that this Guy was only 16 when he signed up to go fight the war because he felt like he really needed to go fight the Japanese.And it's, it's really, I mean, it's must have been such an event, such a world event for people to even lie about their age and to then to go fight the war and. Yeah, and Iwo Jima is something that like it lasted for. I think I remember reading this, it lasted for like about a month, 36 days.And people who fought on Iwo Jima think about it for the rest of their lives. Flags of Our Fathers about Iwo Jima by James Bradley. And he's now talking about like the importance of peace on our YouTube channel.So I think for whoever who wants to hear from James Bradley, who also wrote about Iwo Jima and how the president fell in love with that one picture from by Joe Rosenberg, decided to bring people like his father and also other people to go raise money for war bonds.So then these people were not only just living off of ptsd, they were also having to go over a whole world tour or the nation tour, raising war bonds while they were living in pain. I think that was really such an impactful story to unpack as well. Have you, have you watched the movie or read the book Flags of Our Fathers?

I have not read the book. I have seen the movie and I agree with you. And you know, I can mention that, and I'd like to mention this as well.When you said PTSD back then, they didn't understand ptsd. They just, it wasn't recognized as ptsd.It was shell shock or it was, you know, just the, the, the, the fallout from war is what you were experiencing. So they didn't have a good understanding of that.And I think that contributed to deeper ptsd, especially when they sent these guys around to continuously replay that in their head and replay that to the public and kind of emphasize everything every Time that they had to repeat it, they had to relive it, and it just kind of emphasized that. But no, I haven't read the book, but I, I would like to read the book.After kind of doing the research that I've done on you preparing for this show, I got really involved in your YouTube channel, which is a brilliant YouTube channel that you guys everybody needs to listen to and to watch. And his conversations as well are very poignant. Kind of brings a perspective.

Thank you for subscribing. Yeah. And thank you so much for having me today.

It's been a pleasure. I think that you have given us the opportunity to kind of learn to have a better understanding and to kind of move forward. How is writing a book?I mean, you wrote, you wrote several books in particular the maritas of unit 731 and the undrawning of Lotus that I think are very poignant and the subject matters unknown to the public. Can we talk about that real quick? And what, what kind of motivated you to write, to start writing and to put this down in a book form?

I love reading books. I just thought that I need to tell the story. I don't know how we can tell the story.So then I just started writing and I just had so much information at the time, after I interviewed these women and Johnny noticed I call it a novel, but what had happened are true stories. And these are like from oral interviews that I have done. But it's just that I rounded out one or two scenes.So then I call it, you know, historical fiction.

Right.

And then the Marutas, everything is true. I have done the research.And it's just so incredible to me that this human experimentation, like we all know about the osw, but we don't know about something that was a bigger scale because at this time they had taken over a whole village and they built 150 buildings just for, just to dedicate to bioweapons research. And I just think that it's really incredible that people don't know about it.

Well, I, I, I appreciate that, that you've done that and you've built a community of like over 34, 000 listeners who care deeply about the emotional connection to history and, and so forth. And I think that what you've learned, these people crave these kind of stories. I think it helps us to move forward.How do the themes of resilience, identity and healing in these wartime stories, do you think, mirror the personal growth or journeys that like that you explore? How do you see yourself moving forward?

I Think actually bringing these people's stories to life really helped me in moving forward. And not only that, it really also put things into what we're experiment experiencing today, like, into context.When I was like, researching these women who were surviving from, you know, this kind of brutality and then how they just lived on, it's like, wow, you guys didn't let that kind of experience just bring you down and, like, call it a day. You didn't just roll over and then just. You were able to live on.That survivor that was talking in our conference, jing B. Chan, Dr. Jing B. Chan, who lived through Japanese invasion and her brother died during the Japanese invasion, she was able to, well, for a large part of her life, she suppressed that story. And then she was able to. To get like, her. Her degree in mathematics and she was a professor.And it's just very incredible resilience stories, even after the war.And I mean, for me, it just like I got to witness, like, how even, like, terrible things don't really can, like, just not destroy the human spirit, but to also build a human spirit and build that resilience. And for those people to, of course, is a part of them, but at the same time, they know that, like, they can overcome it.And for me to be able to witness that was very incredible.

I agree with you. I agree with you. How can somebody get a hold of you, find your website and contribute to your organization in various ways?

Yeah. So you can go on pacificatrocities.org and make a donation, or you can also find us on Instagram, Pacific Atrocities.

Edu, and that's where they can find your books and your podcast and your YouTube connection and so many more resources.

Yes.

And I'll make sure those are in the show notes so that people have an easy way to kind of click and get to you.

Great.

This is one more thing before we go. So any words of wisdom on, like, what.What never again means to you personally and how listeners can carry that intention into their own lives and communities.

I think learning more history and learning more about things that are happening around the world and around us can really help shape our future.

I agree with you. Brilliant words of wisdom. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing those. Jenny. Thank you very much for being part of the show.Thank you very much for what you do. Thank you very much for sharing your journey and your wisdom and your experience with us. I appreciate you.

Thank you for having me today.

Absolutely. Today we stepped into a part of history that was nearly lost to silence.But silence doesn't erase truth that only delays the healing that truth can bring. Jenna reminded us that history isn't just a record of what happened, it's a mirror.It reflects who we are, what we value, and how we choose to move forward. The stories of the Asia Pacific theater aren't just wartime accounts. They're human stories.Stories of suffering, resilience, courage, and the unbreakable will to survive. As she just said, when we choose to remember, when we choose to listen, that's when we choose to honor the voices that were once silenced.And Jenny brings that forward in her project. So step forward to reconciliation. Step forward to understanding.Step forward to becoming the kind of person who refuses to look away and help her move her story forward. Truly never again must first be understood and never happen again. So today we took that step together. Jenny, thank you again for work.Thank you again very much for your work, your heart and your commitment to truth. And for you watching and listening.Thank you for being part of this journey, for choosing awareness and choosing empathy, for choosing to carry these stories forward. And that's it for today's journey. If something sparks your curiosity or moved you, share it. Subscribe and stay connected.You can find us on Apple, Spotify or your favorite listening platform. You can always head over to YouTube and catch the full video version. And remember, you're not just listening, you're part of the story.So until next time, keep seeking, keep going, never stop asking. Have a great day, a great week, and thank you for being part of One More Thing before you Go.

Thanks for listening to this episode of One More Thing before youe Go.Check out our website@beforeyougopodcast.com youm can find us as well as subscribe to the program and rate us on your favorite podcast listening platform.