The Rape of Nanking

• The article discusses the Rape of Nanking, a horrific event during World War II.
• It describes atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers after the city fell in December 1937.
• The author is Iris Chang, a Chinese-American.

The Scale of the Atrocity

• An estimated 260,000 to 350,000 Chinese were killed during the massacre.
• Between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women were raped.

Specific Atrocities Detailed

• Young men were rounded up and killed by machine guns, bayonets, or burned alive.
• Women were disemboweled, their breasts sliced off, and nailed alive to walls.
• The brutality shocked even Nazis present in the city.
• John Rabe, a German businessman and Nazi party leader, helped create a safety zone sheltering around 250,000 civilians.

Reasons for Obscurity

• The Nanking massacre remains an obscure incident despite the immense loss of life.
• The death toll exceeded the immediate deaths from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Casualties are greater than those of many European countries during WWII.
• The horrors of the Nanking massacre remain virtually unknown to people outside Asia.
• One factor is the silence surrounding the event, influenced by politics.
• The People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and even the United States contributed to historical neglect due to Cold War politics.
• Neither the People's Republic of China nor Taiwan demanded wartime reparations from Japan to compete for Japanese trade and political recognition.
• The U.S. sought to maintain the friendship and loyalty of Japan to counter the Soviet Union and mainland China.

Japanese Preparation and Mindset

• Decades before the war, Japan prepared for conflict with China through education and propaganda.
• Toy shops glorified war, and schools operated like miniature military units.
• Students were taught to see conquering Asia as Japan's divine destiny.
• Teachers instilled hatred and contempt for the Chinese people.
• One teacher reacted violently when a student cried dissecting a frog.

The Invasion of Nanking

• Japan seized an opportunity to provoke a full-scale war with China in the summer of 1937.
• An incident in Tientsin led to a confrontation and the invasion of Shanghai.
• Conquering China proved more difficult than anticipated.
• Chinese forces outnumbered the Japanese in Shanghai.
• The Chinese defended Shanghai with extraordinary valor.
• The battle proceeded slowly, street by street.
• Towns and cities on the path to Nanking suffered widespread destruction.
• The city of Suchow was looted, burned, and its population decimated.

Elimination Order

• By the time Japanese troops entered Nanking, an order to eliminate all Chinese captives was in effect.
• The Japanese 66th Battalion received the command to execute all prisoners of war without detection.
• The purpose was to eliminate the food problem and diminish the possibility of retaliation.

Deception and Massacre

• The Japanese troops entered a city with vastly more civilians and troops than soldiers.
• The strategy involved deceiving the Chinese by promising fair treatment for surrender.
• Captives were divided into groups and lured to areas near Nanking to be killed.
• Resistance was minimal, and many Chinese soldiers surrendered, hoping for better treatment.
• Once the men surrendered and permitted their hands to be bound, the rest was easy.
• Japanese troops occupied government buildings, banks, and warehouses, shooting people randomly.

Cruelty and Looting

• Streets ran with blood as victims fell.
• Motorcycle brigades patrolled Nanking, and soldiers guarded the entrances to streets and alleys.
• Troops demanded entry to buildings, then opened fire on the inhabitants.
• The army massacred thousands, looted stores, and burned what they could not use.

Japanese Correspondents' Reactions

• Some Japanese war correspondents were shocked by the atrocities.
• Yukio Omata witnessed prisoners brought to Hsiakwan and beheaded.

Methods of Killing

• The killing went on nonstop.
• Soldiers set up machine guns and fired on lined-up prisoners.
• Prisoners fled into the water, but none survived.

Sexual Violence

• The rape of Nanking is considered the worst mass rape in world history.
• Kozo Takokoro recalled that all women, regardless of age, were subjected to rape.
• Coal trucks were used to seize women from streets and villages.
• Each woman was allocated to 15 to 20 soldiers for sexual abuse.
• Some believed raping virgins would make them more powerful and wore amulets made from their pubic hair.
• Soldiers were encouraged to kill their victims afterward.
• Soldiers felt remarkably little guilt.
• Some soldiers did not consider the Chinese to be human.

Comfort Houses

• The Japanese government planned a vast system of military prostitution.
• Eighty to two hundred thousand women across Asia were forced into sexual slavery.
• The aim was to reduce random rape, contain STDs via condoms, and reward soldiers.
• The government denied responsibility for decades, claiming private entrepreneurs ran brothels.
• Yoshiaki Yoshimi found a document showing leaders created comfort houses to stop troops from raping women.
• The first official comfort house opened near Nanking in 1938.
• "Comfort houses" were squalid.
• Women were called "public toilets," and many committed suicide or died from disease or murder.
• Survivors experienced shame, isolation, sterility, or ruined health.

Japanese Veterans' Perspectives

• Japanese veterans reported a lack of remorse for torturing civilians.
• Hakudo Nagatomi described driving through piles of bodies and participating in a "courage test" where he beheaded a Chinese boy.
• After soul-searching, Nagatomi built a shrine of remorse and confessed his crimes.
• Soldiers impaled babies, gang-raped women, and beheaded, starved, burned, and buried people alive.
• Nagatomi described that they gang-raped women from the ages of twelve to eighty and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements.
• Nagatomi stated that he had turned into an animal.