I can't speak for other Americans, but as a general proposition the Holocaust is taught in our schools (or at least to my older generation) as the greatest inhumanity and crime in the last several centuries of Western Civilization - and (mostly) rightly so. Few hold any animus for the several generations of Germans born after 1930 or 35. Most look at it as history, and believe that today's German is, if anything, more altruistic and meek that the majority of the western world. BUT many of us do expect the modern German and Japanese people to accept the facts, and embrace the perfidy as an object lesson to all peoples...and I think they do.
But I sense that you take it personally and you shouldn't. The Holocaust only ranks second to the mass death visited upon the Soviet people by Lenin and especially Stalin. And whereas Hitler only made specific ethnic groups the target of his extermination, EVERYONE in Russia was eligible for execution or deportation to a camp to, very often, die. None the less, we know the most about the Holocaust and held Germans to a higher standard - how could a modern, highly civilized, educated, and cultured Christian society turn into a monstrous genocidal killing machine?
Upon discovery of the size and extent of German murder at war's end the Western Powers were incredulous (although I'm sure for the Russians it was faux outrage). Half of European Jewry were murdered, along with an equal number of Poles. The vast majority Soviet prisoners of war didn't live to see war's end. The Germans had created an efficient killing machine, recycling corpses for use in production. And, of course, every German said "I knew nothing", and very few apologized for their participation however small.
Those who participated, those who ignored, those "good Germans" who complied are almost all dead. There is no point in expecting anyone, today, to make amends for the evils of others. I have no problem with Germans honoring Wehrmacht graves or honoring brilliant military commanders. I have no problem with people being angry over how the German people were treated at war's end, or their loss of national territory, or the ethnic cleansing of Prussia. I am sure there is a story to be told and the Russians are no less guilty of unspeakable crimes, that we only now know the outline of (including operation keelhaul).
But never forget. Honor your German resistance heroes, honor those Germans who stood against the system and protected Jews, honor those prewar German politicians who understood and warned against Hitler and the Nazi threat, honor the good men and women, the innocent, the weak. BUT NEVER FORGET that the 20th centuries greatest war crime of genocide happened because Germans allow, promoted, and remained loyal to a monster in WWII.
The National Socialists did not necessarily, from the beginning, have the intention to kill the Jews.
They wanted the Jews out of Germany. It wasn't until the war that the plan evolved.
Hitler said, for example, who thinks about the Armenians today?
He has a point, even today, that many genocides are forgotten. Also the genocide of the Ukrainians, which I already mentioned, although several million dead, is almost unknown in the world.
The genocide of the Jews is understandable if you understand National Socialism.
The ideology at its centre is shaped by the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft, of race, genetics and progress. On the one hand a crime, but on the other hand on such a high level that it is centuries ahead of its time.
Consider the possibilities and the perspective of a Volksgemeinschaft that selects itself to improve itself and to achieve progress.
Under National Socialism, the focus was not on individualism, but on community.
Certainly, the methods were archaic, brutal and inhuman. But I personally don't find, for example, the means of sterilization inhumane, that was also used in other countries.
In all this, one must also consider - war.
For Germany, the war was nothing less than a struggle for survival. It was therefore said quite clearly: it cannot be that the energy is directed towards the care and maintenance of the degenerated. While every day thousands of young healthy people, the future of the people, die at the front.
The brutality, actually comes from the war itself.
This brutality has also been lived excessively by the USA.
You must not forget, Hitler was coined in the trenches of the First World War.
The brutality of reality was Hitler's teacher. The First World War was very brutal for Germany. The German soldiers were in the trenches on the western front much longer than the Allies who were often changed and rotated backwards. Certainly, many people were brutalized and from this brutality grew the brutality of National Socialism, after 15 years.