The Nanjing Massacre

Last night we took a flight out of Xi’an and arrived in Nanjing. We arrived too late to see anything last night, but we started our tour of the city this morning.

Nanjing is an ancient city, but it is especially important because it has been the capital of China. Despite its long history, the word Nanjing has become  synonomous with massacre. We spent much of our day at the Nanjing Massacre mueseum. In 1936 Japanese forces pushed through the ancient city walls of Nanjing and took the city. Air bombings preceded the land invasion, so the civilians of Nanjing had already suffered greatly beore they ever saw the first Japanese soldier.

The Japanese picked Nanjing because, at this time, it as the captial of the Republican government. (This was the government led by Chang Kai-Shek, between the fall of the Qing Dyansty and the communist revolution). Japan wanted to build its empire in the pacific, and it wanted China. To be a modern, industrial power, it needed China’s vast resources. I also think  the invasion of China had much to do with ego. For most of Japan’s history, China was the dominate force in the region. It was the center of the universe – easily the most powerful and most advanced. By the 1930s, the tables had turned. China was weak after the long period of Western encroachment (Opium Wars, etc.) and the transtition to a new government as the Republican powers tried to maintain control. Meanwhile, Japan had adopted western techonolgy and developed a very strong military force. The tables had turned – Japan was strong while China was weak.

The military faught against the Japanese soldiers that poured into Nanjing, but eventually lost the fight. They surrendered and, according to international laws, the fighting should have stopped. Instead, the Japanese went on a mass killing spree. The orders came down, kill everyone. Kill all prisioners. Kill all soldiers who surrendered. They killed indescrimenatley - men, women, little children, it did not matter. There are stories of them shooting people for sport. They killed others wtih sabers and bayonets. They dug huge pits and buried people alive. They tied weights to people and threw them into the river. At least 20,000 women were raped within the city. That figure does not include the countless in the countryside. Women were taken to be slaves.  It is the brutality that is most shocking. One cannot comprehend how one human can do this to another.  

In total, at least 300,000 people were killed – 1/3 of the city – but we don’t really know because no one could recover all of the bodies. To hide some of the remains, the Japanese soldiers burned bodies en masse. They threw others into the river, which floated from Nanjing into the Yangtze river and washed ashore. The true total casualties could be much higher.  

There was some humanity left in the city. I had never heard of these people before, but part of the museum is dedicated to German, American, and British citizens who were living in Nanjing when the invasion began. Instead of fleeing, they stayed behind to care for the numerous orphans, refugees, and wounded. With other local charities, they also buried the dead.

I hesitated to include such graphic reports in my blog, but it is a part of history that everyone should know. That was the theme of the massacre museum – remember. Remember these people, remember what happened here, so it will never happen again.

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