Abe tempts God’s vengeance-INSIDE Korea JoongAng Daily

God often borrows the hand of a human to punish the evil deeds of men. The cruelest form of punishment would be a full-scale air strike against crimes against humanity. We all remember some of the most devastating raids in history. In February 1945, as World War II was nearing its end, Dresden was destroyed by fire. In the months that followed, Tokyo was carpet bombed and atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

These bombings were divine punishment and human retaliation at the same time. The bombing of Dresden was a retaliation for the Jews massacred by Nazi Germany. Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were revenge for the Asians steamrolled by Japan’s militaristic nationalism, especially the “Maruta,” the human beings used in experiment by a covert biological warfare research team in China called Unit 731. The revenges resulted in very different outcomes. Germany completely changed its national spirit and was reborn as a free and progressive state. Japan, on the other hand, did not turn its back on its past misdeeds.

In 2006, I visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. More than one million Jews were killed in its gas chambers or of starvation or disease. Among the many horrific traces of the Holocaust, I have two very shocking memories. One is the mark of nail scratches on the walls of gas chamber. When the lethal gas was injected into the chamber, the Jewish victims died in excruciating pain, leaving their marks on the concrete wall.

The other is the “standing cells” in which four men were locked up as punishment for infractions in a 16-square-foot space. The prisoners were left to die, standing and facing each other. They scratched the walls with their nails and engraved their last words. “God” is the word that can be found the most.

When Hitler’s evil acts were at their peak, Great Britain and the United States decided to strike Dresden. The city was not just the home of war supplies plants but also a cultural landmark. The so-called Florence of the Elbe was rich with Baroque architecture. Over three days, 5,000 bombers dropped more than 600,000 explosives. The entire city was in flames. The attack claimed the lives of 35,000 people.