The Rape of Nanking

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 07-18-2009 00:24 Edited 07-18-2009 00:26

I didn't read the book but, I've known about it as a student of history...
I will read the book when I get an opportunity to do so.

I believe there is a movie coming out soon about the genocide that was committed by the Japanese in Nanking China during the late nineteen thirties...
I forgot the exact year but nonetheless, apparently the quarter of a million Chinese that were slaughtered at that time wasn't enough of an autrocity to excite world condemnation in those days :( :( :(

It is a genuine crime against humanity that until now has been kept mostly silent just as the much slower, but determined extermination of the native peoples of the North American Continent, the native peoples of the Caribbean Islands, to the present day when the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the Palestinian Arabs in the Middle East which btw, is being committed by the very same people of which when genocide was committed against them, made the word Genocide a popular household term... How Ironic that us humans have yet to learn anything from our past periods of darkness where our savagery has rivaled that of the most savage of wild animals.

There are more episodes where our disregard for humanity would definitely qualify as acts of Genocide, and I apologize for not mentioning all of those specific acts such as the Cambodian nightmare with Paul Pot and afterwards or even before... I will say this however... The Story of Nanking was most definitely one of the most horrific acts of Genocide that I've ever read about. :( :( :(

Thank you for mentioning this rather embarrassing episode in human history Jeff! Everyone should be made aware of this in the hope that such a crime will never again be repeated... However, I doubt that Nanking will teach us enough to stop our own ignorance of others as opposed to inspiring us as humans to make a real effort to tolerate each others differences unfortunately... Sad to say that history has a nasty habit of repeating itself as it's already proven to do more than a few times in the past.

Respectfully,
Henry
A Fellow Member of the Human Race

By Superflux (****)

Date 07-18-2009 06:30

The evil continues every day some where on this planet. No need to go so far back into time for examples of "holocausts", genocide...Pol Pot is responsible for about 1.5 million of his own people during the Khmer Rouge of the later 1970's.

By ssbn727 (*****)

Date 07-18-2009 15:47 Edited 07-18-2009 17:21

Superflux,

I did mention him (Paul Pot) so, what are you are you trying to say? Are you saying that we should accept all of the horrors of the past by not mentioning them anymore, and not bring those memories back as a part of history?
I hope that's not what you're trying to say. I apologize in advance if I misunderstood your reply. :)

Respectfully,
Henry

By spots

Date 07-18-2009 17:52

I think what he was getting at is that due to human nature something similar is happening at this very moment. I can hardly wait to see what the historians write 50 years from now about all of the current civil strife in Africa.

By js55

Date 07-19-2009 13:02

Superflux,
Nanking was perhaps almost half that in one city in 6 weeks. I cannot even imagine the scale of this before the eyes of the witnesses. This is not to discount at all the horror of Cambodia or any other incidents of this nature or turn it into a head count competition. It is meant to buttress it. But, show of hands, how many knew about this?
I admit my own ignorance, and am embarrassed.
And I would disagree. I think when we forget, or when we ignore, there is a need to go back. Especially considering that some of the people involved are still living today.

By js55

Date 07-19-2009 12:50

Henry,
"apparently the quarter of a million Chinese that were slaughtered at that time wasn't enough of an autrocity to excite world condemnation in those days "
According to the author the atrocities were were front page news globally and did incite condemnation. This is one of the shocking things about this incident. Apparently the Japanese were caught by surprise at the condemnation. They clearly did not understand why the world would be so concerned about the Chinese. Early on this carnage was a sense of national pride. And this is an important point, they celebrated it in Japan. Cameras and reporters were essentially given free reign, until the Japanese started hearing of the world condemnation and then access was shut down. Some of the reports spread throughout the world were from Japanese news services.

I will not go into detail on the unbelievably horrific acts that took place. Suffice it to say that there were points in the book where I had to put it down before continuing. And this with some recognition of the fact that Ms. Chang probably held back much. Perhaps not in intensity, but in volume (the upper end numbers hover around 600,000). The point had been made.

The other thing is, to this day the Japanese government has systematically protected perpetrators of this episode, unlike what happened in Germany. Many in Japan do not even believe it ever happened despite preserved newspaper reports from their own press of the time.

As for the silence, Iris offers and explanation. Mao had taken over China and the country went into a period of isolation. So they didn't talk about it. The Japanese certainly weren't going to talk about it. And the world let it go, not wanting to push the issue as Japan was developing into an ally to the west.

By rlitman (***)

Date 07-20-2009 15:57

I visited Japan in the summer of 2001, and spent a day in Hiroshima.
There, I visited the "Hiroshima Peace Military Museum", situated at the south end of "Peace Memorial Park".
The main building of that museum is dedicated to the effects of the bombing on Hiroshima. The other, exhibits Japan's (and specifically the city of Hiroshima's) military history preceding the bombing, with a bit of a chronology of the city's history (pre-war), and a large central exhibit on the explosion itself.

Nestled among the chronology of Japan's military history, is a panel saying (this text is directly copied from the museum's official web-site virtual tour at: http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/frame/Virtual_e/visit_e/est.html):

   Early in the war with China, the Japanese Army occupied many Chinese cities. In December 1937, it took the capital city, then called Nanking. The occupation of this important city cheered the Japanese people, who considered the war in China a holy crusade. Hiroshima's residents celebrated with a lantern parade.
   In Nanking, however, Chinese people were being massacred by the Japanese Army.
   Reports of the number killed vary depending on the area and the time studied. Some estimates are in the tens of thousands, while others put the figure at well over 100,000. In China, the most common estimate is 300,000.

What I need to make more clear though, is that the last three sentences of that actual panel presented in the Museum (starting with "Reports"), were in parenthesis, in fine print, off to the side, at the bottom.
That was it. Miles of exhibits on Japan's glorious military history, all ending at the bomb and all printed in sixteen languages, for all of the millions visiting this city to see, and this footnote. Personally, it made me want to spit on the ground of that museum dedicated to "Peace".

By BryonLewis (****)

Date 07-20-2009 16:13

What I think the problem might be in the understanding of th Nanking massacre is the fact that, although a lot of people were slaughtered, the number of the victims were a drop in a bucket compared to the actual population. Whereas the number of Jew killed in Europe by the Nazis were a much larger percentage of the population.

And I'm sure that there are some racial reasons why Nanking is more or less "forgotten" compared with Hitler's Final Solution.