Interpreters and War Crimes (Edition 1) Takeda, Kayoko
International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning,
01/2021, Letnik:
1, Številka:
4
eBook, Book Review
Odprti dostop
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of interpreters in war while ...investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes and legal aspects of interpreters’ taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as witnesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by interpreters in violent conflict.The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials, with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualized discussion, focusing on the Japanese military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examination of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality, drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote intersectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to manifestly unlawful acts such as torture.
During the Second World War, crime rates skyrocketed in the occupied Netherlands, particularly concerning theft and other offences against property. These crimes were committed by both those who had ...been convicted in the prewar period and previously ‘well-behaved’ citizens. Some of them felt forced to steal by the circumstances, others took advantage of the situation for their own benefit. How did suspects justify their acts? Did they consider theft during the occupation to be a crime, or not? And how did Dutch judges pass judgement concerning property crimes? Did they have compassion for stealing compatriots, or did they consider theft in times of scarcity and increasing poverty to be a great danger, which should be severely punished? In this book, historian Jan Julia Zurné uses case files and verdicts by Dutch courts to provide insight into the lives, experiences and motivations of wartime thieves.
Abstract
There are many explanations for the victory of the United States against the Japanese at the Battle of Midway on June 4, 1942. Mistakes made by the Japanese certainly factored in the outcome ...and the United States also had certain advantages. However, an important if not sufficient explanation for the US victory is the pre-war preparation of the US Navy during peacetime. Designed by Ed Heinemann at Douglas Aircraft in El Segundo, California, from 1934 until 1938, the first Dauntless planes were delivered to the navy in 1940, well in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the moment which is conventionally regarded as the US entry into the war. The pilots of the Dauntless, as I will show in this essay, were much the same; they too were the product of a peacetime Navy.
This is the first extensive treatment of leading judicial institutions under Nazi rule in WWII. It focusses on all democratic countries under German occupation, and provides the details for answering ...questions like: how can law serve as an instrument of defence against an oppressive regime? Are the courts always the guardians of democracy and rule of law? What role was there for international law? How did the courts deal with dismissals, new appointees, new courts, forced German ordinances versus national law? How did judges justify their actions, help citizens, appease the enemy, protest against injustice? Experts from all democracies that were occupied by the Nazis paint vivid pictures of oppression, collaboration, and resistance. The results are interpreted in a socio-legal framework introducing the concept of ‘moral hygiene’ to explain the clash between normative and descriptive approaches in public opinion and scholarship concerning officials’ behaviour in war-time.
During World War II, Soviet museums constituted an important part of the war propaganda machine and were used by the Soviet state to mobilize its population and to create a public historical ...narrative about the war. Staff at Soviet museums began organizing war-related patriotic exhibitions from the very first days of the German invasion in June 1941. This article focuses on two types of war-themed exhibitions and museums that were prominent in the Soviet urban spaces during the war and immediately after: trophy exhibitions and exhibitions and museums that focused on constructing historical narratives about the war. Among the main topics of the latter exhibitions were partisan resistance, German atrocities, and the central role of the Communist Party and Stalin personally. While the creators of these war museums adhered to the ideological frameworks and museum content plans developed by Moscow’s professional ideologists, I demonstrate that local museum workers were able, to some extent, to deviate from centrally prescribed narratives and to engage their own agency and creativity, and that the extent of this deviation was largely defined by regional specifics and by individual efforts and local circumstances. The impact of regional differences in the narration of the war is especially evident in the comparison of the representation of the Holocaust in museums in Kyiv and Minsk. Finally, I demonstrate that local circumstances were a major factor in the fate of each museum after the end of the war.
During World War II, Soviet museums constituted an important part of the war propaganda machine and were used by the Soviet state to mobilize its population and to create a public historical narrative about the war. Staff at Soviet museums began organizing war-related patriotic exhibitions from the very first days of the German invasion in June 1941. This article focuses on two types of war-themed exhibitions and museums that were prominent in the Soviet urban spaces during the war and immediately after: trophy exhibitions and exhibitions and museums that focused on constructing historical narratives about the war. Among the main topics of the latter exhibitions were partisan resistance, German atrocities, and the central role of the Communist Party and Stalin personally. While the creators of these war museums adhered to the ideological frameworks and museum content plans developed by Moscow’s professional ideologists, I demonstrate that local museum workers were able, to some extent, to deviate from centrally prescribed narratives and to engage their own agency and creativity, and that the extent of this deviation was largely defined by regional specifics and by individual efforts and local circumstances. The impact of regional differences in the narration of the war is especially evident in the comparison of the representation of the Holocaust in museums in Kyiv and Minsk. Finally, I demonstrate that local circumstances were a major factor in the fate of each museum after the end of the war.
During World War II, Soviet museums constituted an important part of the war propaganda machine and were used by the Soviet state to mobilize its population and to create a public historical narrative about the war. Staff at Soviet museums began organizing war-related patriotic exhibitions from the very first days of the German invasion in June 1941. This article focuses on two types of war-themed exhibitions and museums that were prominent in the Soviet urban spaces during the war and immediately after: trophy exhibitions and exhibitions and museums that focused on constructing historical narratives about the war. Among the main topics of the latter exhibitions were partisan resistance, German atrocities, and the central role of the Communist Party and Stalin personally. While the creators of these war museums adhered to the ideological frameworks and museum content plans developed by Moscow’s professional ideologists, I demonstrate that local museum workers were able, to some extent, to deviate from centrally prescribed narratives and to engage their own agency and creativity, and that the extent of this deviation was largely defined by regional specifics and by individual efforts and local circumstances. The impact of regional differences in the narration of the war is especially evident in the comparison of the representation of the Holocaust in museums in Kyiv and Minsk. Finally, I demonstrate that local circumstances were a major factor in the fate of each museum after the end of the war.
During World War II, Soviet museums constituted an important part of the war propaganda machine and were used by the Soviet state to mobilize its population and to create a public historical narrative about the war. Staff at Soviet museums began organizing war-related patriotic exhibitions from the very first days of the German invasion in June 1941. This article focuses on two types of war-themed exhibitions and museums that were prominent in the Soviet urban spaces during the war and immediately after: trophy exhibitions and exhibitions and museums that focused on constructing historical narratives about the war. Among the main topics of the latter exhibitions were partisan resistance, German atrocities, and the central role of the Communist Party and Stalin personally. While the creators of these war museums adhered to the ideological frameworks and museum content plans developed by Moscow’s professional ideologists, I demonstrate that local museum workers were able, to some extent, to deviate from centrally prescribed narratives and to engage their own agency and creativity, and that the extent of this deviation was largely defined by regional specifics and by individual efforts and local circumstances. The impact of regional differences in the narration of the war is especially evident in the comparison of the representation of the Holocaust in museums in Kyiv and Minsk. Finally, I demonstrate that local circumstances were a major factor in the fate of each museum after the end of the war.
During the Nazi era, about three million Jews and tens of thousands of Sinti and Roma were deported to ghettos, camps, and extermination centers, where most of them were murdered. In over 20 ...contributions, scholars from different countries examine the deportations through a variety of perspectives and questions, with a special emphasis on the discussion of historical source material.
The letters and journals of Ernst Moritz and Vera Hirsch Felsenstein, two German Jewish refugees caught in the tumultuous years leading to the Second World War, form the core of this book. Abridged ...in English from the original German, the correspondence and diaries have been expertly compiled and annotated by their only son who preserves his parents’ love story in their own words. Their letters, written from Germany, England, Russia, and Palestine capture their desperate efforts to save themselves and their family, friends and businesses from the fascist tyranny. The book begins by contextualizing the early lives of Moritz and Vera. Because the letters are written to each other almost daily, they are incredibly immediate. Most centrally, the letters recount an astonishing love story, sensual in its intimate detail, and full of dramatic pathos in revealing the anxieties of being apart as the Nazi threat unfolds and broadens. It is told through the voices of two exceptionally articulate letter writers. This volume offers insights into the moral and psychological dilemmas faced by German Jews as a targeted community. It affords a unique appreciation of the impact of historical and socio-political upheavals on the lives of a persecuted minority. A scholarly introduction by Rachel Pistol draws out the main themes raised by this correspondence, observing its relevance to contemporary debates about migration and political authority.
In recent decades, the field of urban studies has neglected the question of the hinterland: the city's complex, changing relations to the diverse noncity landscapes that support urban life. Neil ...Brenner and Nikos Katsikis of the Urban Theory Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design argue that this ‘hinterland question’ remains essential, but must also be radically reimagined under contemporary conditions.
