The horror stories from the Japanese Occupation

To describe the WWII tragedies that befell Filipinos as “creepy” won’t do it justice. Even calling it “horrifying” is an understatement. Without a doubt, the Japanese atrocities in the Philippines showed us how far humans could go in the name of honor and lust for power.

Jintaro Ishida, a Japanese veteran who served in the navy during WWII, once shared how his comrades in the Philippines learned to kill innocent civilians–including women and children–as if they were “just killing insects.” A well in a village somewhere in Lipa, for example, became the final resting place of about 400 Filipinos who were thrown to their deaths. A total of 2,000 people in Calamba were also massacred on February 12, 1945, with the old men strangled to their deaths using a rope because it was “an easier and cheaper way to kill them than with rifles and bullets.”
The files from the Tokyo War Crimes Trials are even more stomach-turning. It is said that some Japanese were involved in an “attempted rape of one female civilian; and attempt to have carnal intercourse with the body of one dead female civilian.” Another statement by Filipino prosecutor Major Pedro Lopez details the tragic deaths of a mother and her child who were in the wrong place at the wrong time:
“…in February 1945 in the Manila home of Bartolome Pons, a pregnant woman with an 11-month old baby in her arms was shot and killed. The Japanese started to leave, but hearing the baby cry, returned and killed it with two shots.”
We can never turn back the time, but if horror stories such as these are what will convince the youth to look back and reflect on the lessons of the past, then we can prove that history is indeed valuable.
Source: https://filipiknow.net/true-stories-from-philippine-history-creepier-than-any-horror-movie/