History World War Ii Questions
The major war crimes committed by the Axis powers during World War II include:
1. The Holocaust: The systematic genocide of approximately six million Jews, along with millions of other minority groups, by Nazi Germany. This included mass killings, forced labor, medical experiments, and the establishment of concentration and extermination camps.
2. Rape of Nanking: The Imperial Japanese Army's brutal invasion and occupation of Nanking (now Nanjing) in China, where they committed mass killings, rape, looting, and destruction of the city. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were killed.
3. Massacres and atrocities in Eastern Europe: Nazi Germany and its collaborators carried out numerous massacres and atrocities in countries like Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states. These included the mass murder of civilians, forced labor, and ethnic cleansing.
4. Unit 731: A covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that conducted inhumane experiments on thousands of Chinese, Korean, and other prisoners of war. These experiments included vivisections, frostbite testing, and exposure to deadly diseases.
5. Forced labor and mistreatment of prisoners of war: Both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan subjected prisoners of war to forced labor, harsh conditions, and mistreatment. This included the use of POWs as slave laborers, medical experiments, and mass killings.
These war crimes, among others, resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent civilians and are considered some of the most heinous acts in human history.