", "Case 16 A Chinese girl named Loh, who, with her mother and brother, was living in one of the Refugee Centers in the Refugee Zone, was shot through the head and killed by a Japanese soldier. Currently, the most reliable and widely agreed upon figures place the massacre victims within Nanjing City Walls to be around 40,000, mostly massacred in the first five days from December 13, 1937; while the total victims massacred as of the end of March 1938 in both Nanjing and its surrounding six rural counties far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000. In 1948, the case of the Nanjing massacre was considered by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which handed down two death sentences. The Flowers of War by Geling Yan, translated by Nicky Harman. Quite the same Wikipedia. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned to death. Another piece of evidence that was submitted to the tribunal was Harold Timperley's telegram regarding the Nanjing Massacre which had been intercepted and decoded by the Americans on January 17, 1938. At noon on December 9, the Japanese military dropped leaflets into the city, urging the city of Nanjing to surrender within 24 hours, promising "no mercy" if the offer was refused. [85] [24], German businessman John Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi Party and the existence of the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact. [12][23][24], The first historian to make an academic estimate of the death toll of the Nanking Massacre was Tomio Hora in his 1967 book Kindai Senshi no Nazo ("Riddles of Modern War History"), who argued in favor of 200,000. [156] Trade between the two nations is worth over $200billion annually. Everybody learns that 300,000 people died in the Nanking Massacre when the Japanese occupied the city and massively killed civilians. [49] Though many still support the IMTFE's geographic scope for the massacre, in 1984 the journalist Katsuichi Honda became the first individual to voice disapproval of this definition. [22] The International Military Tribunal of the Far East tallied up 155,000 victims of the massacre, though in their verdict against General Iwane Matsui this figure was modified somewhat to "upwards of 100,000 people". Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Imperial Army marched from Shanghai to the Chinese capital city of Nanking, and though a large number of Chinese POWs and civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese following their entrance into Nanking on . [75], Rabe wrote that, from time to time, the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them. government archives, much of which was from the period 19421945. [143], He offered his apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. General Matsui was indicted before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East for "deliberately and recklessly" ignoring his legal duty "to take adequate steps to secure the observance and prevent breaches" of the Hague Convention. [18] John Rabe, the German head of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, estimated that between 50,000 and 60,000 Chinese were killed in Nanking, though this estimate included both military casualties and massacred civilians. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. Two days later he defended his remarks, saying, "Even since I was a national Diet representative, I have said [repeatedly] there was no [Nanjing] massacre that resulted in murders of several hundred thousands of people. [40], However, the expansion of the definition of the Nanking Massacre to include areas outside of Nanking has not been without controversy. Tokyo Nichi Nichi, 13 December 1937 article on the killing contest. 200,000 (consensus), estimates range from 40,000 to over 300,000. [76], By February 5, 1938, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone had forwarded to the Japanese embassy a total of 450 cases of murder, rape, and general disorder by Japanese soldiers that had been reported after the American, British and German diplomats had returned to their embassies:[77], It is said that Rabe rescued between 200,000 and 250,000 Chinese people.[78][79]. Only since the 1990s, through the revisionist Patriotic Education Campaign, the massacre has become a national memory as an episode of the "Century of Humiliation" prior to the communist founding of a "New China". Just better. The last refugee camps were closed in May 1938. During the post-war period, China . [28], Prince Asaka issued an order to "kill all captives," thus providing official sanction for the crimes which took place during and after the battle. [44] The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation,[45] such as by penetrating vaginas with bayonets, long sticks of bamboo, or other objects. "Case 5 On the night of December 14th, there were many cases of Japanese soldiers entering houses and raping women or taking them away. [2][3][4][5] Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. [29] By contrast, Kasahara generally supports the higher burial estimates presented at the IMTFE, though he concedes that not all of the Chongshantang's figures can be accepted "at face value. A Japanese hotelier's denial of a 1937 massacre by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing has prompted Chinese social media calls for a boycott of travel to Japan, threatening tourist . There are no official numbers for the death toll in the Nanking Massacre, though estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 people. [28], David Askew, a historian at Ritsumeikan University, states that the death toll of the Nanking Massacre can be calculated by modern-day historians on the basis of four types of sources. According to Xinhua News Agency, it is the most complete record to date. According to American historian Edward J. Drea: While the Germans, beginning in 1943, did engage in substantial efforts to obliterate evidence of such crimes as mass murder, and they destroyed a great deal of potentially incriminating records in 1945, a great deal survived, in part because not each one of the multiple copies had been burned. THE NANKING MASSACRE - Page 4: Defining the victims. From February 7, 1938, killings were no longer in mass fashion as the senior Japanese officers came to restore discipline of their troops, according to the testimony of, Quote: "The Japanese Army, one million strong, has already conquered. They also murdered hundreds of thousands . The first type of source is oral history, but he calls this "the most problematic methodology in researching the incident" due in part to large discrepancies between the testimony of Japanese and Chinese eyewitnesses. In China the figure of 300,000, the death toll reckoned at the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, is the official estimate engraved on the stone wall at the entrance of the Qin-Hua Rijun Nanjing Datsusha Yunan Tongbao Jinianguan, or the Memorial Hall for Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military's Nanjing Massacre. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind. Hata discounts estimates of the death toll which range into the hundreds of thousands on the basis that, according to Smythe, Nanking's civilian population was only between 200,000 and 250,000. 5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanjing and demanded entrance. Chinese soldiers were summarily executed in violation of the laws of war. [13] Timperley included a second estimate in his book published later the same year, Japanese Terror In China, which quoted "a foreign member of the University faculty" as stating that "close to 40,000 unarmed persons were killed within and near the walls of Nanking". [133], Associate Professor David Askew of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University said that in Japan, a unified Japanese view of the massacre doesn't exist because of the internal debates and contentions surrounding the massacre, and that the different views can be categorized into mutually exclusive groups. [25] Since then the death toll of the massacre has been a major topic of discussion among historians across the world. But, as noted, no one actually counted the dead. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, a six-to-five decision by the eleven judges, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures but did not succeed in commuting the Minister's sentence. . Various Japanese officials and historians have disputed the death toll since the war, angering China. [86], Ono Kenji, a chemical worker in Japan, curated a collection of wartime diaries from Japanese veterans who fought in the Battle of Nanking in 1937. [99][100] An estimate death toll of 300,000 has also been cited. On December 5, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka was installed as Japanese commander in the campaign. Some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in, and many others were shot by the Chinese supervisory unit as they tried to flee.[21]. In his diary kept during the aggression against the city and its occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Safety Zone, John Rabe, wrote many comments about Japanese atrocities. The Nanjing massacre has also been described as one of the most barbaric episodes in the history of World War II although it officially began on September 1, 1939. . "[178], The Nanjing massacre has emerged as one fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity. While the extent of Prince Asaka's responsibility for the massacre remains a matter of debate, the ultimate sanction for the massacre and the crimes committed during the invasion of China were issued in Emperor Hirohito's ratification of the Japanese army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners on August 5, 1937.[32]. Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing", "Le massacre de Nankin et les mcanismes de sa ngation par la classe politique dirigeante", U.S. Archives Reveal War Massacre of 500,000 Chinese by Japanese Army, https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/china_nanjing_en.pdf, "Japanese statement protesting UNESCO registration of Nanjing Massacre docs backfires", Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, "The Nanjing Massacre: Primary Source Records and Secondary InterpretationsA Textual Critique of Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi's Review", "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan", "Biography of Lieutenant-General Moritake Tanabe - () - ( ) (1889 1949), Japan", "More names on Nanjing Massacre memorial wall", "Religious Assembly Held to Mourn Nanjing Massacre Victims", "China holds first Nanjing Massacre memorial day", "The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction", "A (very) short history of Japan's war apologies", "Nagoya mayor won't budge on Nanjing remark", "Japan ruling MPs call Nanjing massacre fabrication", "Subcommittee on Nanjing Issues Press Conference (YouTube)", "Japanese Official Denies Nanjing Massacre", Nagoya mayor won't budge on Nanjing remark, "Tokyo governor backs Nanjing massacre denial", "The Nanking 100-man killing contest debate", "Governor of Japan broadcaster NHK denies Nanjing massacre", "The Nanking Massacre, Justice and Reconciliation: A Chinese Perspective", "In Japan, denial over Nanjing still holds sway after 70 years", "Book review. [9], The Japanese army conducted its mopping-up operation both inside and outside the Nanking Safety Zone. Notably, the novelist Hotta Yoshie[ja] wrote a novel, Time (Jikan) in 1953, portraying the massacre from the point of view of a Chinese intellectual watching it happen. [58] B. Campbell described the Nanjing Massacre as a genocide, given the fact that residents were still slaughtered en masse during the aftermath, despite the successful and certain outcome in battle. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. . This definition was supported by Hora and other early scholars. New York Times (New York), January 9, 1938; accessed March 12, 2016. A People's Liberation Army honour guard bearing large funeral wreaths marched slowly past a memorial showing the figure 3,00,000, China's official death toll in the events of December 1937, as . [110][111], In the 2010 Japan-China Joint History Research Committee meeting, scholars from the Japanese side set the maximum possible number of civilian victims at 200,000, with estimates of around 40,000 or 20,000. In 1947 at the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, the verdict of Lieutenant General Tani Hisao , the commander of the 6th Division quoted the figure of more . . "[1], One-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson. On December 13, 2009, both the Chinese and Japanese monks held a religious assembly to mourn Chinese civilians killed by invading Japanese troops. [51] This definition, though considerably larger than the IMTFE's, keeps the massacre contained to "Nanking" without including cities on the outskirts of Shanghai like Suzhou and Wuxi which Honda does include. [36], From December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army engaged in random murder, wartime rape, looting, arson, and other war crimes. For example, a two-volume collection of military documents related to the Nanjing operations was published in 1989; and disturbing excerpts from Kesago Nakajima's diary, a commander at Nanjing, was published in the early 1980s. [citation needed], To many Japanese scholars, post-war estimations were distorted by "victor's justice", when Japan was condemned as the sole aggressor. However, Askew notes that Japanese units often exaggerated their body counts. Friday December 17 2021, 10.25am, The Times. At the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals, the Nanking Massacre death toll was presented either as "more than . [4] Although the Japanese succeeded in surrounding Nanking and defeating the Chinese garrison stationed there by December 13, few of the Chinese soldiers within the city formally surrendered. Besides, we count more than 150,000 victims of barbarian acts buried by the charity organizations. The second telegram was sent through Shanghai to Japanese military leaders, advocating for a three-day ceasefire so that the Chinese could withdraw from the city. As the Japanese approached, the Chinese army withdrew the bulk of its forces since Nanjing was not a defensible position. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers. In the meantime, members of the Committee contacted Tang and proposed a plan for three-day cease-fire, during which the Chinese troops could withdraw without fighting while the Japanese troops would stay in their present position. As per Sina, Oberver.com verified that Twitter froze the . At dusk, the soldiers divided POWs into four columns and opened fire. [139] The publication of these articles triggered a vehement response from Japanese right-wingers regarding the Japanese treatment of the war crimes. [94] Wakabayashi concludes that estimates of over 200,000 are not credible. Kasahara notes that Smythe's survey proves that a bare minimum of 12,000 ordinary civilians were massacred within Nanking, though other contemporary sources gives figures between 50,000 and 100,000, plus at least another 26,870 outside Nanking. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. Bates, Miner Searle", "International Memory of the World Register Documents of Nanjing Massacre", "New film has Japan vets confessing to Nanjing rape", 1937 Japanese Field Commander's Map of the Battle of Shanghai, China, "Analyzing the "Photographic Evidence" of the Nanking Massacre (originally published as Nankin Jiken: "Shokoshashin" wo Kenshosuru)", The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe, "War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries", "Jurist Paper Chase: Japanese court rules newspaper didn't fabricate 1937 Chinese killing game", "The scars of Nanking: Memories of a Japanese outrage", "Five Western Journalists in the Doomed City", "Chinese Fight Foe Outside Nanking; See Seeks's Stand", "The International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone: An Introduction", "Genocide in the 20th Century: The Rape of Nanking 19371938 (300,000 Deaths)", "Special Report: How the Nanjing Massacre became a weapon | GRI", "Basic Facts on the Nanking Massacre and the Toyoko War Crimes Trial", "HyperWar: International Military Tribunal for the Far East [Chapter 8]", "Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing: Chapter X: Widespread Incidents of Rape", American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, "Why the Past Still Separates China and Japan", "HyperWar: International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Chapter 8) (Paragraph 2, p. 1015, Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East)", "25 July 1946. [6] Over the course of its subsequent occupation of Nanking the Japanese Army hunted down the former Chinese soldiers within the city and in a large number of cases summarily executed them. [183], In December 2007, the PRC government published the names of 13,000 people who were killed by Japanese troops in the Nanjing Massacre. [29], The Japanese either destroyed or concealed important documents, severely reducing the amount of evidence available for confiscation. [40], By contrast, Ikuhiko Hata also examined the Japanese Army's documents and tallied up a total of 30,000 Chinese POWs massacred out of a total Chinese force of 100,000. [8] These events are collectively known as the Nanking Massacre. The second one is right - the Rape of Nanking wasn't as bad as people say. The horrific events are known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing, as tens of thousands of women and girls were sexually assaulted. In one estimate the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal put the death toll at more than 300,000, though the Tribunal also recorded other estimates including one of 430,000. I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people, but the Army must continue unless China repents. On May 1, 1946, SCAP officials interrogated Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city at the height of the atrocities, about his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre and the deposition was submitted to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo tribunal. Many innocent men were misidentified and killed.[1]. The survivors were killed with bayonets.[69]. Wealthy families were the first to flee, leaving Nanjing in automobiles, followed by the evacuation of the middle class and then the poor, while only the destitute lowest class such as the ethnic Tanka boat people remained behind. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Higashinakano had claimed in his book, Thorough Review of Nanjing Massacre, that she and the girl were different persons, and that she was not a witness of the Nanjing massacre, but he was unable to prove this at trial. These estimates are borne out by the figures of burial societies and other organizations, which testify to over 155,000 buried bodies. Some Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform "repulsive sex acts". The Chinese government left for relocation on December 1, and the president left on December 7, leaving the fate of Nanjing to an International Committee led by John Rabe, a German national. Targets within and outside of the city wallssuch as military barracks, private homes, the Chinese Ministry of Communication, forests and even entire villageswere completely burnt down, at an estimated value of US$2030 million (1937). : Defining the victims the relatives and friends of the Massacre lasted six weeks of arson that. 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