China / Society

WWII documentary translated into 8 languages

(Xinhua) Updated: 2015-07-03 14:57

BEIJING - A Chinese documentary on how Germany and Japan reflected on their wartime atrocities has been translated into eight languages, and is available on major news portals.

The Chinese version of the 90-minute, four-episode documentary, "Truth and Denial: Germany and Japan's Postwar Redemption", was first aired on China Central Television in early June.

Produced by the Institute of World History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, it has been translated into English, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic.

The documentary details how the two major countries in the war reflected on their actions post-World War II.

While Germany earned respect through concrete efforts, Japan irked its Asian neighbors by denying its war crimes.

Jiang Youxi, the director and producer of the documentary, said the documentary offered a new Chinese perspective on WWII.

"There are many articles on the Internet analyzing Japan and Germany's different attitudes following WWII, but they did not answer my question: Why did they embarked on different paths."

Jiang and her team went to Japan and interviewed many Japanese people, including Yukio Hatoyama (army veterans), experts and right-wing activists.

They also visited sites in China, including the location of the Nanjing Massacre and Unit 731, where the Japanese Army experimented with biological and chemical warfare.

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