Over the course of seven weeks, the Japanese brutally murdered more than 300,000 people in and around the city of Nanjing, then the capital of the Republic of China. During this time, Japanese soldiers would have contests to see how many Chinese they could in a given amount of time, shoot at Chinese for fun, and push corpses into the Yangtze River by the hundreds. In addition to those killed, many were raped, abused, and starved. Resident foreigners, led by a Nazi named John Rabe did what they could both to protect Chinese in the city as well as document the horrible crimes committed by Japanese soldiers. Incredibly, there are Japanese who still deny these horrible crimes, but the world outside Japan knows what happened.
Japanese expansion in China began in 1895 when Taiwan Province was annexed into the Japanese Empire. In the early 1930s, the Japanese went into Manchuria in the northeast and established the puppet kingdom of Manzhouguo (Manchukuo). By 1937, the Japanese, feeling that they were ready to bite off more of China, began an all-out offensive against the Chinese. The Chinese were no match for Japan on the battlefield. Japanese forces landed near Shanghai and began their march toward Nanjing. At every stop made by the Japanese, they committed horrible atrocities against the Chinese people, only a portent to what would come later. As the Japanese began marching toward Nanjing, residents of the countryside fled to Nanjing, where it was thought the city wall and Nationalist forces might provide some protection. In fact, Chiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi) abandoned the city and left those who couldn't afford to leave to fend for themselves.
What happened once the Japanese entered the city is atrocious. It brings tears to my eyes to think of the pictures I saw and what the people who survived this atrocity told me. What is even more infuriating is the fact that many in Japan, including leading politicians such as Shintaro Ishihara (the governor of Tokyo Prefecture), and many scholars deny what happened!
In Nanjing, there is a momument and museum dedicated to the horrors of that time. There are stone inscriptions from survivors of that horrible time what happened in the city. Inside, there is a historical summary of what the Japanese did from the time they landed near Shanghai until the time they reached the city of Nanjing. What they did in the cities leading up to Nanjing was only a dress rehersal for what they did in the Chinese capital. And by all accounts outside Japan, what they did was horrifying and brutal.
When I visited the city, I had the chance to speak with survivors of the Rape. They told me many stories of what happened. While none are stories I hadn't read before, when you hear it first hand from someone who lived it, it takes on a stronger meaning. Finally, I asked many of them if they could forgive the Japanese. It is true that some said no under any circumstances. Many told me that although what happened has harmed them irreparably, what hurts them more is the effort by the Japanese to distort the truth. If the Japanese could make a credible apology and stop this effort to distort the truth, healing can begin. They emphatically told me to tell the outside world that the horrible things really did happen; that the Japanese soldiers really did behave like butchers. They love peace and they want to have reconciliation with the Japanese, but the Japanese must take the first step. I totally agree.
Iris Chang. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (1998)
Joshua A. Fogel. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. (2000)
Yuku Tanaka. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. (1998)
Zhigeng Xu. Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre, 1937. (1996)
James Yin and Shi Young. The Rape of Nanjing: An Undeniable History in Photographs. (1996)
John Rabe. The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe. (1998)
Masahiro Yamamoto. The Rape of Nanking: Separate Fact From Fiction. (To be published in August 2000)
Timothy Brook (Ed.) Documents on the Rape of Nanking. Also available in softcover.
Click on the rabbit to tell me what you think.