Introduction 9 It is therefore society that creates the potential for violent eruptions in a newly established space-time continuum by planting the seeds of cruelty— chauvinism, prejudice, racism, or other ideological beliefs—into its members. In addition to that, acts are usually based on certain emotional conditions, which are usually also dictated by a society’s narrative, for example, about its enemies who supposedly only deserve to be hated, degraded, and tortured.68 The self-identity of the perpetrator, as a member of a specific society that bases its beliefs on the aforementioned negative factors, allows him or her to act vio- lently against nongroup members, particularly in a space-time continuum that is molded by war. Violence, being an extremely complex phenomenon, is often the expres- sion of all those factors combined.69 In addition, it can not only lead to dan- ger, but also become a plausible way for human beings to act, which is why regulating violence must be a precondition for the peaceful coexistence of dif human identity groups. Democratic states usually prevent violence ferent because it is monopolized and controlled by the state.70 Particularly in a reshaped space-time continuum in a war zone, limitations disappear, narra- tives for legitimization are overemphasized, and eventually violence grows to have no purpose beyond its own sake. For the perpetrators, ideologies and cultural factors—including existing military culture—can be decisive for the use of violence.71 For the war in Asia from 1937 to 1945, historian John W. Dower emphasizes that “considerations of race and power are inseparable” and that “governments on all sides presented the conflict as a holy war for national survival and glory, a mission to defend and propagate the finest values of their state and culture.”72 The participating combatants consid- ered the war to be a “race war,” and the level of violence was most likely “fueled by racial pride, arrogance, and rage on many sides.”73 Yet one cannot solely explain the perpetrators’ acts with racism, especially because, to quote Alan Kramer, “compliance of perpetrators with orders to carry out genocidal acts was founded in a range of motivations.”74 We should therefore not forget that “sheer pleasure in danger-free killing” might also have played an important role in the cruelties that were committed in the specific war zone.75 It is always shocking to find out that those who are engaged in such unthinkable acts are quite ordinary,76 and as such, it is important to understand how violence was made possible in a specific space-time continuum without using the nation- ality of the perpetrator as an explanatory factor. Violence does not know any nationality, much like the suffering of the victims knows no nationality and should be grieved without national limitations. Memories of genocidal acts always lie with those who survived war as Lawrence Langer put it, a “remnant of a ruined past.”77 After the violence ends, a struggle for the power to dictate memory of the events begins and “for the perpetrators and their apologists, the incomplete erasure of their
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