GenZedong

The reference to the public toilet is significant, it being a common metaphor for brothels, which were understood as places where men could evacuate their excess desire. Indeed, the term "hygienic public bathroom" was a euphemism sometimes used to describe comfort women by Japanese soldiers (Shin and Cho 1996: 53)—"hygienic" because, unlike unsupervised prostitutes, the military enforced a strict health code on brothel workers so as to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Soldiers were thus encouraged to think of the bodies of prostitutes as little more than "semen toilets".

I don’t mean to compare atrocities, but this is the same kind of feeling that I suffered when I saw a preview of the film The Grey Zone, which reenacted an Axis vehicle dumping a literal truckload of human ash on the ground.