But those are the narratives people romanticize. And there's a significant element of truth to them - that's the benefit of having such monstrous opponents dominating the timeframe, other ills and even a bit of divisiveness pale by comparison. I can see why it's attractive for romanticizing, particularly when compared to almost everything else.
No. It’s lies. There was no freedom of speech at that time, so you are looking back and seeing the propaganda.
And "nothing like as bad" really starts to fall apart when you look at the Bengal famine, honestly. It's more like "nowhere near as vile and devoted to day-to-day evil" as Nazi and Imperial Japanese forces, but causing 2-3 million deaths because Churchill was an incredible racist against Indians specifically and no-one was willing/able to stop him until journalists blew this wide open is beyond words. It's perhaps fair to say people were going to go hungry somewhere in British territories in WW2 at that time, but there's a difference between hunger and huge mass death via starvation, and Churchill chose the latter for Bengal, and did literally nothing (except make a couple of disgusting racist jokes) when the British Imperial leadership there made plea after plea after plea.
