[citation needed], On 18 February 1938, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone was forcibly renamed the Nanjing International Rescue Committee, and the Safety Zone effectively ceased to function. [171][172], According to a brief reference to Nanjing at the Yasukuni museum in Tokyo, the Japanese general in charge gave his men maps showing foreign settlements and a civilian "safety zone", and ordered them to maintain strict military discipline. 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]. 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. Eyewitness accounts include testimonies of expatriates engaged in humanitarian work (mostly physicians, professors, missionary and businessmen), journalists (both Western and Japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. [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. Chinese soldiers were summarily executed in violation of the laws of war. (1939), Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (reprinted in, Kajimoto, Masato "Mistranslations in Honda Katsuichi's the Nanjing Massacre". Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi "The Nanking 100-Man Killing Contest Debate: War Guilt Amid Fabricated Illusions, 197175", Yang, Daqing. [60] On 13 December 1937, John Rabe wrote in his diary: It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. 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 [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. The final type of source mentioned by David Askew is data sampling, and though only one such survey of this variety was conducted, Lewis S.C. Smythe's "War Damage in the Nanking Area", it is an essential document for estimating civilian casualties of the atrocity. [152] He alleged a death toll of 10,000. 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". "[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]. [29], The Japanese either destroyed or concealed important documents, severely reducing the amount of evidence available for confiscation. Title. They believed the 300,000 toll typified a "Chinese-style exaggeration" with disregard for evidence. Two days later, in his report to The New York Times, Durdin stated that the alleys and streets were filled with the dead, amongst them women and children. [158], Many Japanese prime ministers have visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a shrine for Japanese war deaths up until the end of the Second World War, which includes war criminals that were involved in the Nanjing Massacre. [121] He was found guilty of war crimes, sentenced to death, and executed by shooting on 26 April 1947. [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. Currently, the most reliable and widely agreed upon figures place the total death toll of the massacre between the broad range of 40,000 to 200,000 massacre victims in the entire Nanking Special Administrative District. [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. He was promoted to the rank of general in August 1939, though he held no further military commands. He agrees with Hata that Chinese soldiers actively engaged in combat were not massacre victims, but he also includes in his definition of the massacre any Chinese soldiers who were killed on the battlefield but not actively resisting, noting that many confrontations between the Chinese and Japanese Armies were more like one-sided slaughters than battles. China's Rising COVID-19 Death Toll Satellite images suggest a higher number of deaths as China suspends short-term visas for South Korean and Japanese travelers in a retaliatory measure. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. ", "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. Death toll of the Nanking Massacre. [67], Soon after the fall of the city, Japanese troops made a thorough search for Chinese soldiers and summarily arrested thousands of young Chinese men. Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing", This page was last edited on 31 December 2022, at 03:33. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. 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. Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo dispatched enciphered messages to field commands throughout the Pacific and East Asia ordering units to burn incriminating evidence of war crimes, Following the outbreak of the Second SinoJapanese War, the Japanese Imperial Army marched from Shanghai to the Chinese capital city of Nanking, and though a large number of Chinese P New York Times (New York), January 9, 1938; accessed March 12, 2016. "[168] Recognizing the Nanjing Massacre as such can be viewed in some circles in Japan as "Japan-bashing" (in the case of foreigners) or "self-flagellation" (in the case of Japanese). [154] He said that there were isolated incidents of brutality but no widespread atrocity, and criticized the Tokyo Trials figure of 200,000. 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. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned to death. 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. [58], The official stance of the People's Republic of China is that 300,000 or more Chinese were massacred in Nanking. The Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanki. [36], From December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army engaged in random murder, wartime rape, looting, arson, and other war crimes. [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. Rape! Men, women and children were killed in uncounted numbers throughout the city. historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll from the massacre. What was probably the single largest massacre of Chinese troops, the Straw String Gorge Massacre, occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18. Whether Asaka ordered the Rape, or simply stood by as it happened, is disputed, but he took no action to stop the carnage. The girl was 14 years old. Yang Daqing, "Convergence or Divergence? ", "Case 10 On the night of December 15th, a number of Japanese soldiers entered the University of Nanjing buildings at Tao Yuen and raped 30 women on the spot, some by six men. [citation needed], To many Japanese scholars, post-war estimations were distorted by "victor's justice", when Japan was condemned as the sole aggressor. But we always stabbed and killed them. [56], 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 Nanjing and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. [8] These events are collectively known as the Nanking Massacre. 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. 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 . The women and children are crying all nights. 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 a press release to foreign reporters, Tang Shengzhi announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. 'Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 19581962' by Yang Jisheng", "China cites Japan wartime 'confessions' in propaganda push", "The Chinese, Too, Have Much to Apologize For", "Japanese statement protesting UNESCO registration of Nanjing Massacre docs backfiresCanada ALPHA ", "China athletes unlikely to stay at controversy-linked Sapporo hotel", "Japan threatens to halt Unesco funding over Nanjing massacre listing", " | JBpress ()", " | JBpress ()", "What Japanese history lessons leave out", "History Education: The Source of Conflict Between China and Japan", "The Nanjing Incident Recent Research and Trends", The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview, The Nanking Massacre: Fact Versus Fiction: A Historian's Quest for the Truth, Analyzing The 'Photographic Evidence' of The Nanking Massacre, War Damage in the Nanking area Dec. 1937 to Mar. On December 13, 2009, both the Chinese and Japanese monks held a religious assembly to mourn Chinese civilians killed by invading Japanese troops. 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. [18] The judge also ruled against the civil claim of the plaintiffs because the original article was more than 60 years old. THE RAPE OF NANKING OR NANJING MASSACRE 5 The judges of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials) were prepared to accept that at least 200,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were slaughtered by the Japanese in the six weeks after Nanking fell.The judges were also prepared to accept that the death toll would be much higher if . The Truth about the Nanjing Massacre. [67] Joshua A. Fogel, a historian of China at York University, has decried the efforts of many Chinese to exaggerate the death toll of the atrocity and then "silence anyone who disagrees". 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]. [18][23] However, the prosecution at these trials made little effort to verify the accuracy of their death toll estimates and a considerable amount of dubious and now discredited data was accepted by both tribunals. Jones, Paul. [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. He assigned Asaka to Nanjing as an opportunity to make amends. In 21st century Japan, the Nanjing Massacre touches upon national identity and notions of "pride, honor and shame". 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. On the one hand, burial statistics combine massacre victims with Chinese combat casualties and thus exaggerate the death toll. However, according to historian Tokushi Kasahara, the evidence used to convict Hisao Tani was not convincing. 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 December 13, 1937, the precise number remains unknown. The Japanese awaited an answer to their demand for surrender but no response was received from the Chinese by the deadline on December 10. After decades of struggle, the Nanking Massacre had become a recognized piece of Japanese history. [note 1] The massacre was one of the worst atrocities committed during World War II.[6]. At trial, Matsui went out of his way to protect Prince Asaka by shifting blame to lower-ranking division commanders. 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. [21] By contrast Bob Wakabayashi sets the bar higher and believes that the estimate of 40,000 victims put forward by Ikuhiko Hata is the lowest reasonable estimate of the total death toll and considers numbers below this to be attempts at minimizing the atrocity. Files. This orthodox victimhood narrative has become entwined with the Chinese national identity and is very sensitive to the revisionist sentiments from the far-right in Japan, which makes the memory of the massacre a recurring point of tension in Sino-Japanese relations after 1982. [7] At the same time soldiers of the Japanese Army also committed random acts of murder against civilians, and engaged in rape, arson, and looting. 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. . 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. The American ambassador in Hankow replied that although he supported Rabe's proposal for a ceasefire, Chiang did not. [9] The number of Chinese soldiers in plain clothes that were executed is estimated to be around 4,000. The soldier abruptly stabbed her in the belly with a bayonet. George A. Fitch, Lewis S. C. Smythe, and James McCallum filed affidavits with their diaries and letters. [citation needed], The remembrance of the massacre has evolved drastically in China. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. The Nanking Massacre as a component of national identity. Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. [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. Please give us help. Such crime continued from three to six weeks depending on the types of crime. Since records were not kept, estimates regarding the number of victims buried in the ditch range from 4,000 to 20,000. [54][55] On the other hand, at least one historian has noted that the atrocity in Nanking could be equated with the entire war waged by Japan on China. [124], In 1947, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, the two officers responsible for the contest to kill 100 people, were both arrested and extradited to China. After the establishment of the weixin zhengfu (the collaborating government) in 1938, order was gradually restored in Nanjing and atrocities by Japanese troops lessened considerably. Some Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform "repulsive sex acts". The Nanjing Massacre (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Nnjng Dtsh, Japanese: , romanized:Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as Nanking[note 2]) was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, by the Imperial Japanese Army. [33][note 3]. 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