Beyond the Pacific: Exploring WWII in East and Southeast Asia – June 2026

Comfort Women Education is an online resource collection created by Comfort Women Action for Redress and Education or CARE. This source provides a lesson plan to discuss Comfort Women that includes powerpoints, resource handbooks, and video lessons.

A written account from the perspective of Kim
Tŏkchin, a former comfort woman. She recounts how she was deceived, believing she would be working in a factory, then how she was assaulted by soldiers.

“Using personal stories of the comfort women as teaching materials can help educators emphasize the importance of protecting human rights by providing students a vivid picture of the impact that human rights violations have on people’s lives. Comfort women stories may be graphic, but are necessary to fully understand the human rights violations that those women endured. For students who hear about today’s wars and atrocities from the media, an open and forthright discussion would be helpful to teach how to critically understand such events in both the past and the present.” 

This page collects propaganda posters produced during the Second Sino-Japanese War (following Japan’s invasion of China in 1937). The bulk of the posters are produced by the Chinese Nationalist Party and focus on the need to continue defending China despite heavy losses (the Nationalist party of GMD was doing most of the fighting while the communists were camped in rural China). Some posters produced by Japan (or the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo) used anti-communist sentiments or praised the Japanese army . This source provides several posters with historical context that can be compared and contrasted for discussion purposes.

This resource features excerpts from textbooks produced in Japan, China, South Korea, and the United States to highlight differing coverage of sensitive issues such as the Nanjing Massacre and the Atomic Bombings of Japan. Not only is this a useful tool for better understanding the violence of the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, but also illustrates collective memory in action. It provides examples from textbooks as well as pictures that can be used in class discussions regarding historical events and how different perspectives change the way they are recounted.

A website that provides an overview of the history and science of the nuclear age, as well as a resource library filled with historical documents and a media gallery with photos and videos. This resource can be used as a reference to different atomic events (e.g. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Cold War) and provide a background for class discussions.

A documentary covering the story of America’s development of the nuclear bomb and the consequences that continue to loom over today. This is free to stream on PBS and can be assigned to students to screen in full or clips can be selected for class discussion.

This resource is both a documentary that aired in 2005 and an article that discusses the final year of WWII and the lead-up to the Atomic Bombings. There are features provided that can be used to add to discussion or further research WWII or the Atomic Bombings, including articles, clips, and primary resources that were referenced in the documentary.

This educational page by Students of History provides an overview of colonialism in South and Southeast Asia, which spanned from 16th to mid-20th centuries. This explains the effects of colonialism on various aspects of life including geography, people, and the different countries within South and Southeast Asia. Designed for middle and high school classrooms, the site offers a clear introduction to colonialism prior to and during WWII, helping teachers set the stage for the topic.

This educational website is provided by Pacific Atrocities Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the human rights violations and war crimes committed in the Asia-Pacific Theatre of World War II by the Japanese Imperial Army. It provides a brief but informative historical overview of Japan’s takeover of Southeast Asian countries during WWII and is great for middle and high school teachers as it provides related pictures, YouTube clips, and reference readings that can be used in class.

This educational website is provided by Pacific Atrocities Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the human rights violations and war crimes committed in the Asia-Pacific Theatre of World War II by the Japanese Imperial Army. It provides a brief but informative historical overview of Japan’s takeover of Southeast Asian countries during WWII and is great for middle and high school teachers as it provides related pictures, YouTube clips, and reference readings that can be used in class. [A continuation of the previous article with additional pictures, videos and readings provided.]

This informational website created by the Imperial War Museums provides a brief history of the decolonization process of countries in South and Southeast Asia. This information complements the other sources as it completes the history of colonization in Southeast Asia, in particular, how each country was able to gain its independence. The website is well-suited for teachers planning world history units at an upper level course.