[56] By this definition the "Nanking Massacre" can symbolically be said to have lasted from 1931 to 1945, extended over the whole of China, and included ten million victims. ", Harold Timperley, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, reported that at least 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed in Nanjing and elsewhere, and tried to send a telegram but was censored by the Japanese military in Shanghai. [note 1] A group of foreign expatriates headed by Rabe had formed a 15-man International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone on November 22 and mapped out the Nanking Safety Zone in order to safeguard civilians in the city.[38]. [36], From December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army engaged in random murder, wartime rape, looting, arson, and other war crimes. [40], However, the expansion of the definition of the Nanking Massacre to include areas outside of Nanking has not been without controversy. [12] Furthermore, this estimate includes an accusation that the Japanese Army murdered 57,418 Chinese POWs at Mufushan, though the latest research indicates that between 4,000 and 20,000 were massacred,[61][62] and it also includes the 112,266 corpses allegedly buried by the Chongshantang, though today many historians agree that the Chongshantang's records were at least exaggerated if not entirely fabricated. . [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. Historians who define the Nanjing Massacre as having started from the time that the Japanese Army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19), and extended the end of the massacre to late March 1938. [107] Other sources, including Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanjing, also conclude that the death toll reached 300,000. This district encompassed not only the city of Nanking proper, occupied by the Japanese from December 13, but also the six rural counties surrounding it, namely Jiangning, Lishui, Jurong, Jiangpu, Luhe, and Gaochun. [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. [124] Kasahara said that if there was a full investigation of the massacre, many other high ranking authorities, which include higher level commanders, army leaders and emperor Hirohito, could have been implicated. [66], The Hui people, a minority Chinese group, the majority of them Muslim, suffered as well during the massacre. [1] Today most Japanese historians of the so-called "great massacre" school have reduced their death toll estimates somewhat and now advocate the figure of "100,000 plus" in contrast with the old consensus of 200,000. Hiroshi Yoshida concludes "more than 200,000" in his book. Various Japanese officials and historians have disputed the death toll since the war, angering China. Both officers supposedly surpassed their goal during the heat of battle, making it impossible to determine which officer had actually won the contest. Yoshida argues that "Nanjing crystallizes a much larger conflict over what should constitute the ideal perception of the nation: Japan, as a nation, acknowledges its past and apologizes for its wartime wrongdoings; or stands firm against foreign pressures and teaches Japanese youth about the benevolent and courageous martyrs who fought a just war to save Asia from Western aggression. Just better. Prince Asaka, as part of the Imperial Family, was granted immunity and never tried. Hs Shuhsi, ed. China on Monday marked the 84th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians and disarmed soldiers were killed by Japanese troops in and around the former Chinese capital. Answer (1 of 16): 1. ", "Japanese Crimes in Nanjing, 193738: A Reappraisal", "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", Japan's Last Vets of Nanking Massacre Open Up, "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanking Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", "The Chinese Islamic "Goodwill Mission to the Middle East" During the Anti-Japanese War", "John Rabe's letter to Hitler, from Rabe's diary", "Denial of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking", "The Rape of Nanking vs. the incident of Nanking: a Literature Review", "The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends", Paragraph 2, p. 1012, Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East, "Convergence or Divergence? [1] Ikuhiko Hata considers the number of 300,000 to be a "symbolic figure" representative of China's wartime suffering and not a figure to be taken literally. Although Koizumi denied that he was trying to glorify war or historical Japanese militarism, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused Koizumi of "wrecking the political foundations of China-Japan relations". ", Organized and wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent sanction of the commanders on the pretext that Chinese soldiers had removed their uniforms and were mingling with the population. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, "Leftover Problems," in The Nanking Atrocity, 193738: Complicating the Picture, ed. The contest continued because neither had killed 100 people. [63], Pregnant women were targeted for murder, as their stomachs were often bayoneted, sometimes after rape. [20], Today many mainstream historians concur that this estimate is exaggerated. The first three weeks were more intense. On December 13, 1937, after seizing Nanjing, the Japanese army carried out a bloody slaughter of unparalleled savagery in violation of international law. In regards to the Nanjing Massacre, Japanese authorities deliberately concealed wartime records, eluding confiscation from American authorities. Eighteen others received lesser sentences. That same afternoon, two small Japanese Navy fleets arrived on both sides of the Yangtze River. The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December [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. 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. The Nanking Massacre as a component of national identity. 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. The U.S., which served as the melting pot of cultures and is home to descendants of members of both Chinese and Japanese cultures, took up the mantle of investigator for the victimized Chinese. [52][53] There are also accounts of Japanese troops coercing families to commit incestuous acts. "[70][71], Ralph L. Phillips, a missionary, testified to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, that he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and ate them. They killed him immediately with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after Ha's death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Jones, Paul. He and his staff realized that they could not risk the annihilation of their elite troops in a symbolic but hopeless defense of the capital. According to the Mainichi Shinbun, this is a photo of Nanking citizens wearing armbands of the flag of Japan and giving cheers to the Japanese military on the day of its Ceremonial Entry into Nanking on December 17, 1937.. Takashi Yoshida asserts that, "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the . Yoshida has argued that the Nanjing Massacre has figured in the attempts of all three nations as they work to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies. Death Toll Estimates. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. On December 11, Rabe found that Chinese soldiers were still residing in areas of the Safety Zone, meaning that it became an intended target for Japanese attacks despite the majority being innocent civilians. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. The four horsemen of denial. [121], Kki Hirota, Prime Minister of Japan at an earlier stage of the war, and a diplomat during the atrocities at Nanjing, was convicted of participating in "the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy" (count 1), waging "a war of aggression and a war in violation of international laws, treaties, agreements and assurances against the Republic of China" (count 27) and count 55. Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi "The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 197175", Yang, Daqing. The last refugee camps were closed in May 1938. Between the announcement of a ceasefire on August 15, 1945, and the arrival of small advance parties of American troops in Japan on August 28, Japanese military and civil authorities systematically destroyed military, naval, and government archives, much of which was from the period 19421945. Pi means "hip," kankan means "look." According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese . In 1995, Daniel Kwan held a photo exhibit in Los Angeles titled, "The Forgotten Holocaust". Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanjing, criticized Murayama for not providing the written apology that had been expected. All the new books mentioned the massacre and five of them printed the death count as estimated by the Chinese government (300,000 deaths), the remaining two books estimated the death toll at 200,000. [38][39], In his final analysis, Tokushi Kasahara looks at documents and diaries recorded by soldiers of the Japanese Army and concludes that at least 80,000 Chinese soldiers and POWs, or possibly over 100,000, were massacred by the Japanese, which was most of the estimated total force of 150,000 soldiers. According to the archives research "The telegrams sent by the U.S. diplomats [in Berlin] pointed to the massacre of an estimated half a million people in Shanghai, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Wuxi and Changzhou". [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". This resulted in widespread looting and burglary.[73]. [57] Soon after some denialists claimed that no massacre had taken place at all. It remains, however, the Japanese soldiers swarmed over the city in thousands and committed untold depredations and atrocities. [26][89] Daqing Yang, a historian at George Washington University, believes that "an obsession with figures reduces an atrocity to abstraction and serves to circumvent a critical examination of the causes of and responsibilities for these appalling atrocities"[90] and Carol Gluck concurs that "The crucial historical question remains the moral one: how could ordinary Japanese have done what they did? I told them that after all our efforts to enhance the Imperial prestige, everything had been lost in one moment through the brutalities of the soldiers. . "[75] According to historian Jonathan Fenby, the most recent research places the death toll at 100,000 or less, though he only cites one recent estimate as evidence for this claim.[76]. I know not where to end. [30] Others assert that lieutenant colonel Isamu Ch, Asaka's aide-de-camp, sent this order under the Prince's sign-manual without the Prince's knowledge or assent. [127], On October 9, 2015, Documents of the Nanjing Massacre have been listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. [citation needed], To many Japanese scholars, post-war estimations were distorted by "victor's justice", when Japan was condemned as the sole aggressor. Rape! [108][109], According to documents in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, at least 300,000 Chinese were killed. It would seem according to stories told us by foreign witnesses that the soldiers were let loose like a barbarian horde to desecrate the city. Men, women and children were killed in uncounted numbers throughout the city. Many fled the city on December 7, and the International Committee took over as the de facto government of Nanjing. However, according to historian Tokushi Kasahara, the evidence used to convict Hisao Tani was not convincing. [88], In early 1980s, after interviewing Chinese survivors and reviewing Japanese records, Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi claimed that the Nanjing Massacre was not an isolated case, and that Japanese atrocities against the Chinese were common throughout the Lower Yangtze River since the battle of Shanghai. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was convened at "Ichigaya Court," formally Imperial Japanese Army HQ building in Ichigaya, Tokyo. [citation needed], The government of Japan believes it can not be denied that the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other acts by the Japanese army occurred. [12][26][60] The figure was originally based on the verdict of the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal which added the burial records of 155,300 bodies with 72,291 destroyed corpses to arrive at a total of 279,586, though there was an apparent adding mistake in this calculation. [21][66] Within China scholars focus on defending the official figures and in the past the government has imposed censorship on historians who have suggested alternative numbers. The survivors were killed with bayonets.[69]. Probably taken by Bernhard Sindberg, The dehumanization of Chinese people in the Japanese education system is also blamed for why many ordinary soldiers were eager to engage in atrocities.[82]. Myth: The Nanjing Massacre has always been important to China. The number 300,000 is displayed prominently at memorials and is the higher end of commonly accepted estimates. On trial with them was Gunkichi Tanaka, a captain from the 6th Division who personally killed over 300 Chinese POWs and civilians with his sword during the massacre. Stories are heard of civilians being shot or bayoneted for no apparent reason.[62]. A new report on the 1937-1938 massacre doesn't settle the contested issue of how many people died -- but it points to a much more They bayoneted one little boy of eight who [had] five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. A bar graph comparing four different claims for the number of non-military victims of the Nanjing Massacre, as well as the death toll claims of six different groups. You hear nothing but rape. [68], In 2006, Kaz Ross, a historian with the University of Tasmania, anonymously interviewed a number of university researchers in the city of Nanking to learn their private views on the death toll of the Nanking Massacre. 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. . Durdin, who worked for The New York Times, toured Nanjing before his departure from the city. [citation needed], The entry for the same day in Matsui's diary read, "I could only feel sadness and responsibility today, which has been overwhelmingly piercing my heart. Instead, they wore trousers tied with a string. In August 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai, where they met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the head with a sword. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass . [16], In 2000, historian Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi concurred with certain Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a concocted story, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising the national fighting spirit. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash desperately. I think he will live. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. [T]here is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. [29] Some authors record that Prince Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanjing to "kill all captives". "[1], One-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson. [90], Numerous factors complicate the estimation of an accurate death toll.[91][92]. [13], Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers as reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English-language Japan Advertiser. The soldiers killed her with a revolver. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind. . Title. [21], However, when Shokun! He was sentenced to death and executed in 1949. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanjing. I am born in China. [31] However, some historians have variously argued that Smythe's figures are either underestimates or exaggerations of the true civilian death toll. Live Statistics. Other eyewitnesses to the massacre also expressed their opinions in Japanese magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, but political shifts slowly eroded this tide of confessions. The civilian Chinese population remaining in the city crowded the streets of the so-called "safety zone" as refugees, many of whom are destitute. General Iwane Matsui waited another hour before issuing the command to take Nanjing by force. "[65] Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. They also murdered hundreds of thousands . A vocational college teacher was fired after a video of her questioning the true death toll of the Nanjing Massacre surfaced online, triggering a wave of backlash on social media platforms over the statement. On December 13, 2009, both the Chinese and Japanese monks held a religious assembly to mourn Chinese civilians killed by invading Japanese troops. . Nanjing Massacre, conventional Nanking Massacre, also called Rape of Nanjing, (December 1937-January 1938), mass killing and ravaging of Chinese citizens and capitulated soldiers by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army after its seizure of Nanjing, China, on December 13, 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War that preceded World War II. 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. 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. Other members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone who took the witness stand included Miner Searle Bates and John Magee. [18] However, in a 1942 speech Chiang Kai-shek raised that figure to "over 200,000 civilians". [42] For instance, after routing the Chinese in Nanking, Japanese soldiers fired upon and killed a large number of Chinese soldiers who were attempting to escape the battlefield by swimming across the Yangtze River. Rape! 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. The death toll reckoned at the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal, is the official estimate engraved on the stone wall at the entrance of the "Memorial Hall for Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military's Nanking Massacre" in Nanjing. [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. However, most scholars and historians consider the number to be more than 12,000 victims. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. [57] The most credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the tribunal and its findings. [26][36] For instance, Tokushi Kasahara claims that Nanking's population in 1937 included 400,000 to 500,000 civilians and 150,000 soldiers,[37] whereas David Askew believes it was 200,000 to 250,000 civilians and 73,790 to 81,500 soldiers. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Death toll of the Nanking Massacre. Rape! I am really, therefore, quite happy that I, at least, should have ended this way, in the sense that it may serve to urge self-reflection on many more members of the military of that time. The slaughter of civilians is appalling. There are no official numbers for the death toll in the Nanking Massacre, though estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 people. Instead of punishing the Japanese troops who were responsible for wholesale rape, "'The Japanese expeditionary Force in Central China issued an order to set up comfort houses during this period of time,' Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a prominent history professor at Chuo University, observes, 'because Japan was afraid of criticism from China, the United States of America and Europe following the case of massive rapes between battles in Shanghai and Nanjing. More conservative estimates say that the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. "[178], The Nanjing massacre has emerged as one fundamental keystone in the construction of the modern Chinese national identity. Table of Content Show Japan's invasion of Chinese . The visitor is left to assume they did. Kasahara generally concludes that the death toll must have been well over 100,000, and possibly around 200,000. The following is an excerpt: In other words, on the 13th when your troops entered the city, we had nearly all the civilian population gathered in a Zone in which there had been very little destruction by stray shells and no looting by Chinese soldiers even in full retreat. All 27 Occidentals in the city at that time and our Chinese population were totally surprised by the reign of robbery, raping and killing initiated by your soldiers on the 14th. The extent of the atrocities is hotly debated, with numbers ranging from Japanese ultra-nationalist claims of several hundred, to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000. [84], In late January 1938, the Japanese army forced all refugees in the Safety Zone to return home, immediately claiming to have "restored order". People from mainland China saw themselves as the victims. "[137], The debate concerning the massacre took place mainly in the 1970s, according to Higashinakano Shudo. Hata argued that Chinese troops killed on the battlefield were part of the Battle of Nanking rather than Nanking Massacre, and that only civilians and disarmed POWs should be counted as massacre victims. [164][165][166], Yoshida asserts that "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the United States] to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies."[167]. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (then spelled Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. The speed of the army's advance was likely due to commanders allowing looting and rape along the way. the court found that at least 200,000 had perished during the Rape of Nanking. [19] The same month a representative of the Nationalist Government of China claimed that the Japanese had killed 20,000 civilians during the Nanking Massacre. "[120], Matsui asserted that he had never ordered the execution of Chinese POWs. [183], In December 2007, the PRC government published the names of 13,000 people who were killed by Japanese troops in the Nanjing Massacre. Iwanami Shinsho, Fujiwara Akira (editor). [3] After capturing Shanghai the Japanese Army decided on December 1 to continue its military campaign to the capital city of the Nationalist government of China, Nanking, which is roughly 300 kilometers west of Shanghai. [85] [104][105][106] According to Bob Wakabayashi, he estimates the death toll within Nanjing City Wall to be around 40,000, mostly massacred in the first five days; while the total victims after a 3-month period in Nanjing and its surrounding six rural counties "far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000". [17], In 2005, a Tokyo district judge dismissed a suit by the families of the lieutenants, stating that "the lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people" and that the story cannot be proven to be clearly false. [15], Between then and the late 1940s these two estimates were commonly cited by reporters and the media. [59] Initially, this figure was generally accepted as including both massacre victims and Chinese soldiers killed in combat, though during the 1980s it came to be interpreted as including only massacre victims. They accused Beijing of using the alleged incident as a "political advertisement". Only after firmly establishing 'historical particularities' can one clearly define Japans responsibility. John Rabe's Safety Zone was mostly a success, and is credited with saving at least 200,000 lives. [35], In addition, the total civilian population of Nanking in December 1937 and the size of the Chinese garrison defending the city are used as a basis for calculating the death toll, though the matter is complicated due to greatly varying estimates for both of these numbers. . [169] 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. That's how they get their nationalism and pride, that Japan never made any mistake to other countries during the WW, instead, they're a victim of the US, they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Women and girls were raped en masse and looting was widespread. Please give us help. The number of Chinese killed in the massacre has been . Dec 17, 2021 2-min read. He further argued that he had directed his army division commanders to discipline their troops for criminal acts, and was not responsible for their failure to carry out his directives. As those who are related to the prewar military, we simply apologize deeply to the people of China. This is caused by the Army's misbehaviors after the fall of Nanjing and failure to proceed with the autonomous government and other political plans. According to Navy veteran Sho Mitani, "The Army used a trumpet sound that meant 'Kill all Chinese who run away'. Hempel's hotel was broken into as well, as [was] almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road.[61].
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