The Nankin Massacre in China: Historically Forgotten

Most people in the world never seem to realize the mass number of raping or killings that are going on around them. Meanwhile, during the holocaust, no one understood how much it was happening around them then either, except for the people it was happening to. Most people are aware of the savagery that occurred during the holocaust in Germany, but few have ever even heard of Nanjing, much less the rape of Nanjing. Both genocides share very close similarities, and they both also share their differences.

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking, China. They killed 300,00 out of the 600,000 people in China’s capital city. The six-week rampage by the Japanese is now known as the Rape of Nanking and the single worst atrocity during WWII era in either the European or Pacific theaters of the war.

Throughout The Rape of Nanking, the brutal massacre of thousands of innocent Chinese citizens is brought forth through the invasion of this ancient city taken over by the Imperial Japanese army. Iris Chang illustrates the graphic details of the murder and rape of these victims through the perspectives of different sides of the attack. Chang; furthermore, ties in the mass genocide and destruction displayed throughout the book with the example of the Japanese government’s desperate attempt to cover up the incident and the reluctance of the survivors to discuss it. In addition, the horrifying events of The Rape of Nanking only further motivated an uncontrollable desire for aggression, violence, and imperialism in the Asian community evidently

In Night by Elie Wiesel, he recounts his experiences in the Holocaust and talks about how many of the people involved–those who could be seen as perpetrators, victims and bystanders alike–and how denial played a key role in their actions in the Holocaust. Wiesel writes about denial so much as a warning to the reader, helping us understand that we need to avoid denial in the modern world and whatever crises we may face; if denial hadn’t been so prominent in the Holocaust, much less people would’ve died. This is clear in Wiesel’s retelling of the events.. Many people were involved in the Holocaust, obviously. Some were just innocent people, pushed into the deadly situation for being who they were; others were people seeking to somehow help themselves

Mrs. Wen, in her testimony of the Japanese atrocities at Nanking in 1937, she writes “ Japanese troops arrived, all of them armed with guns, knives, force me to take off my pants, I would be killed if I didn’t, I personally watched as the Japanese troops massacred many people” (Doc A). In stating this, the author means that the Japanese soldiers went through every house and shooting every civilian they could and raping women without hesitation. Mr. Taketa, in his testimony about life in Japan before the atomic bomb was dropped, he claims that “the Japanese people were forced to endure poverty and suffering” (Doc D). The author means that Japan’s government starve their people to death and let them suffer, as part of their culture. Furthermore, the Japanese were known by their way of killing their prisoners. These brutalities by the Japanese soldiers were considered inhumane. Thus, President Truman should have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan because the cruel actions of the Japanese needed to be stopped, and save innocent

The Jews and Chinese suffered beatings from their oppressors while they were trying to recover from their recent injuries. In the memoir, Night, Idek, a German Kapo, conducted the Jews viciously, making almost any injuries very difficult to recover from. For example, Idek was viciously beating Elie when they crossed paths. Idek lost his temper and caused himself to jump on Elie. Idek violently beat Elie continuously until Elie was covered in blood. Even though Elie tried not to howl in pain in the way of accepting his false, Idek mistook him and beat Elise harder and harder (Wiesel 53). This was an example of cruelty because Elie was being beaten for just being in Idek's path while Idek was venting his anger. Idek's actions showed cruelty because he attacked Elie without stopping to let Elie recover even though, Elie was nearly dying from the beating. Another example of beatings, was that in the Nanjing database of war, Alan Axelrod’s The Rape of Nanjing, the war crime database stated that "Atrocities reported and (in many cases) documented include a rampage through the Nanking Hospital, during which soldiers tore bandages from the flesh of the wounded, smashed casts with clubs, and raped nurses" (Axelrod). These actions showed cruelty to the Chinese because the Chinese were being beaten from the brutality of the Japanese, even though the Chinese were already suffering from their

Within Night, Elie Wiesel experienced the SS officers inflicted pain on him for the sole reason of bringing enjoyment and releasing tension. One example Wiesel experiences personally is when Idek, the Kapo of the warehouse where Wiesel worked in Buna, walks up to him and begins to viciously beat him, leaving him covered in blood on the floor of the warehouse. Wiesel goes on to describe that Idek had come up to him fuming with anger and quickly calmed down as he continued to beat on Wiesel (53). There was no reason for Idek to beat Wiesel as he was just doing his job, but Idek chose to repeatedly strike him to release his tension because he could do so without repercussion. Furthermore, Wiesel describes another incident where he and the other imprisoned Jews are forced to run to their new camp. Wiesel writes about how the soldiers were ready to shoot at any moment as “they did not deprive themselves of the pleasure” to kill a Jew and “if one of us stopped for a second, a quick shot eliminated the filthy dog” (85). It is this excitement to kill that exemplifies the fact that the SS soldiers have found excitement in torturing and killing the Jews. Correspondingly, the Imperial Army soldiers of the Rape of Nanking also used the Chinese victims as a source of enjoyment through inflicting pain. As described in The Rape of Nanking, the Imperial soldiers were laughing as other soldiers beheaded Chinese men, one after another, going so far as to take pictures and make a game out of seeing how many people a soldier can behead (89). The soldiers had become bored with raping and murdering people, so they began to form games around these acts to bring back the excitement they desired. The soldiers found great amusement in these games, showing just how twisted they were. However, these games began to bore them, so they began to force

When authors write about World War II, most set their stories in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, but few would give a moment of thought to the atrocities perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army in East Asia and the Pacific region. However, Laura Hillenbrand has brought us this heavily neglected side of the tragedy. By following the vicissitudes of a USAAF lieutenant named Louis Zamperini in her bestseller “Unbroken”, she pays tribute to all ex-POWs and soldiers that lost their lives on the Asian battlefield.

A scream echoed throughout the harsh winter air, where it passed a frail man tied to a post whose eyes drooped and arms rotted. The noise flew past a few soldiers loading a biological weapon into a plane. The scream landed upon the ears of a scientist who stood inches away from that horrible cry, and continued his work, uncaring of a heart beating at his fingertips. He was the sole spectator and sole perpetrator of this person’s death through live dissection. This was what happened in Japan’s biological warfare experimental camp from 1935 to 1945. The camp was made possible by the Manchurian Incident which is when the Japanese bombed their own property and claimed it was an attack by the Chinese, prompting the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. However, Japan yearned to conquer more nations. Sensing a war with Manchuria’s north

Attacks stretched as far as the northern U.S. military installation, Chu Lai, down to the primary objective in the south, Saigon. The launch of such an intricate and fierce attack caught many U.S. commanders off guard because at the time, the potential of the Northern fighters was severely underestimated. In the years before, Saigon acted as a safe haven for many refugees trying to escape the horrors of war. The comfort of the city soon vanished when the North Vietnamese sent 35 battalions to seize six objectives in the capital. A few of these enemy fighters took over a government radio station with the intention of spreading pro-communist propaganda. The North Vietnamese believed that if they could control the transmitting tower, they could convince the citizens of the South to riot against the U.S. forces. Fortunately for the U.S. troops, this plan was stopped by a Lieutenant of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) who previously decided to cut all transmission to and from the government radio tower. As the Viet Cong were waiting for reinforcements, ARVN troops

The most gruesome tales have come to light by the people who survived the merciless actions of the Japanese soldiers. For instance, Tang Shunsan who witnessed and survived the mass murder of Nanking when he left the safety of his hideout behind due to his simple curiosity. Tang and his fellow shoemaker apprentices hid in their house where they converted the doorway so it looked like “...from the outside, a smooth, unbroken wall”(nanking 2). The Japanese soldiers never would have known he was there had he not ventured out into the open to satiate his curiosities of what a Japanese man looked like. Once discovered, he was taken to a large grave for the Chinese people they had killed, and, “...to Tang’s horror, a competition began among the soldiers-a competition to determine who could kill the fastest”(nanking 3 pg. 85). With luck on his side, Tang survived the competition when “ the soldier decapitated the man directly in front of Tang”(nanking 4) and instead of moving out of the way, “Tang also toppled backwards and dropped, together with the body, into the pit”(nanking

They slaughtered thousands of Chinese civilians during the rape of Nanking in 1937. It was necessary for America to drop the bomb.

World War II was a devastating war, whether you were directly in the war zone, or away from the battlefield, you were impacted greatly. Flyboys is a book written by James Bradley, in this book Bradley tells stories of World War II using first-hand accounts. In chapter five, Bradley discusses “The Rape of China” which was a battle that took place in 1937 during the beginning of World War II. In this battle, the Japanese fight the Chinese and destroy China. Both Japan and China had very different moral beliefs on fighting in the war. China believed that the soldiers needed to “be courteous,” and to also be “neither selfish nor unjust” to civilians (Bradley 54). Meanwhile, the Japanese had totally opposite policies known as the “Three Alls” meaning

In just six short weeks, the Chinese city of Nanjing was devastated with the brutal murdering of civilians ranging somewhere between 40,000 to 300,000 deaths, along with 20,000 to 80,000 of the cities woman being raped. These horrific statistics came to fruition after the Imperial Japanese Army forces abruptly entered the Chinese city of Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China at the time, on December 13, 1937. It is often debated as to how serious the massacre really was as both the death and rape tolls seems to have such large ranges. Although many may argue that the Rape of Nanjing was Japans attempt at world domination, others often disagree, proclaiming that the genocide was simply exaggerated and possibly even fabricated entirely. In many instances this “fabrication” was believed to be an attempt at political propaganda, but there are various supporting facts that prove otherwise. The massacre was in fact a real,

The conflict between the Allies and the Axis was a horrific and deadly one, which consisted of genocide and mass bombings. Innocent citizens were killed with the estimated sixty million casualties, which lead to the question as to the morality of the different actors—Germany, Japan, England and America— in WWII. In order to truly assess their guilt, meaning their moral innocence, each country will be measured upon the morality of their intent and execution of the different controversial mass killings that Germany (the Holocaust), Japan (Nanking), and the Allied forces (Dresden and Hiroshima) took part in. This hierarchy of evil can be judged upon how Japan’s tyranny and the Allies’ area bombing compare to the genocide performed by Germany. Similarly, these countries will be judged on the whether these different acts were premeditated versus in response to another act, as well as the proportionality to which these acts were carried out. This measurement of evil places each party on an overall scale, which depicts the total guilt that each country or countries deserve. WWII exemplifies that while war is an unavoidable aspect of human nature, there is no such thing as a just war. Similarly, while there is a definite hierarchy of morality between the different actors of WWII, each of the countries at play are immoral in their intent and execution of the attacks on opposing countries.