This is a very interesting question that I have wrestled with in conjunction with the exploration of a postwar discussion based class I'm currently taking. Truthfully, I haven't yet found any good answer, but one book I read indirectly does add to the discussion.

Andrew Barshay's The Gods Left First actually deals with the repatriation of the Japanese Manchukuo army's personnel after being forced into Soviet gulags for months to years at a time.

Only with the onset of rapid economic growth in the late 1950s and 1960s, and the seismic political changes in NE Asia triggered by Nixon's visit to China in the early 1970s did an atmosphere form in which returnees could begin to find their voice

-168

We must keep in mind that these internee's experiences were actually very different from the majority of Japanese because of the fact that they were subjected to the soviet gulag system. Perhaps the feeling of being left behind is more powerful in their case, but many Japanese (civilian and military) were left across the scattered Japanese empire. In conjunction with this information perhaps how a country perceives it's own war time experience greatly affects how the other countries place weight to that experience.

In reading this book I had notes wondering whether the Japanese post-war experience was as much letting go as it was a lack of acknowledgement and what that meant for a remembering narrative to the Japanese people.

I'm afraid I can't extrapolate to how other countries perceive these atrocities, nor can I compare to the German post-war experience, but Tom Segev's The Seventh Million addresses what wide-ranging effects the holocaust had upon Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish leaders, among many others. Certainly there is some weight to be given to the international presence that the Jewish organizations held in giving European displaced persons (DPs) a new home. I think it's fair to say that simply the amount of organization needed, and the subsequent additions to human rights law (mostly made in the context of European refugees) served to promote the Jewish cause to a higher pedestal on the world stage.

Definitely not a great answer, but this is a wide-ranging and difficult one to pin down. I hope I contributed something to the discussion!

Sources:

The God's Left First, Andrew Barshay

The Seventh Million, Tom Segev

In War's Wake, Gerard Cohen