I think Slag has the right idea about this.

Racial (or national) prejudice seems to have been the rule, not the exception, during the WWII period (and also in previous wars).

Germans were routinely referred to as "the Hun" in English-speaking nations during WWI...a really disgusting term to use for Germans, in my opinion, but people seem to have taken it for granted at the time.

Japanese were referred to as "Japs" or "Nips", with similar dehumanizing intentions. (The extreme prejudice and hatred I saw commonly STILL directed at WWII Japanese during my youth in North America during the postwar period (in the 50s and early to mid-60s) surpassed in its viciousness any other form of prejudice I've ever directly witnessed. It was almost an unbelievable level of race hatred and gross caricature of another nation. Have a look at some old WWII propaganda cartoons that the American film industry did against Japanese in the 40s. They're on Youtube. You'll see what I mean.)

Italians have been referred to as "Wops" or "Eyeties" and portrayed as cowards (which they were not).

None of this is nice, to say the least, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese, Germans, and Italians sometimes used similarly derogatory terms for the people of nations they were fighting against. It's typical of the ugliness that stems from wartime propaganda, and it's designed to make young soldiers go out and kill the enemy with "extreme prejudice" and no hesitation whatsoever. You're supposed to forget that they are human too.

As for the term "nigger", it has become pretty much the ultimate politically uncorrect term in modern times, but when Mark Twain was writing his wonderful books it was the standard word in the vernacular for most Americans, particularly rural Americans...and both black and white Americans...used when they were speaking of a black person. So Twain had it in his books, naturally, because it was an ordinary term at the time.

That has changed.

It's a disservice to the young people of today to censor the past by changing words that were written or spoken in the past. If we do censor all that stuff, they won't even have any real understanding OF the past, and we will be deliberately making them ignorant in order to supposedly "protect" them from something. That doesn't even make any sense.

I cringe inside when I read a passage about World War I and hear Germans being referred to as "Huns" or "the Hun", because I like Germans and I respect them as a nation. It makes me sick to hear that propaganda term. Nevertheless, I do not want it expunged from every quoted historical account and reminiscence of that time, because I want to know exactly what happened back then so that I can work against the same sort of thing happening now...but being inflicted on someone else entirely. I do not want to be protected by being kept ignorant of the cultural habits of the past.

And the same goes for the words "nigger", "Jap", etc...in the context of a quoted past or an old book from a previous era.

How can we oppose present evils effectively if we are afraid to even look at similar examples of evils that have occurred in the past and thereby understand what happened back then and why it happened? How can we deal with present prejudice if we're afraid to look directly at historical examples of past prejudice?

So, yeah, Slag...I think you have the right idea on this one. Be honest about the past, don't hide what was said or done in the past, but add a qualifying statement such as you have suggested.