The Nanjing Massacre Paper

The Rape of Nanjing: A Forgotten Massacre Many of the violent incidents that have been documented in history receive some recognition over the years, either by the people or by politicians. Whether it be an apology or a simple lesson, most international cases of mass murder are often brought to light, especially those more recent and with high death tolls. The Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing, is one case where the cruel and unwarranted deaths of thousands of citizens are unrecognized or avoided by the public to this day. The Rape of Nanjing was the massacre and takeover of Nanjing, China by the Imperial Japanese Troops. The troops entered the city in late 1937 and left around the middle of February 1938. Within this period, an estimated two-hundred thousand to three-hundred thousand people were killed, and twenty-thousand to eighty-thousand women were sexually assaulted by the troops, which is the origin of the disaster’s name (history.com). Before the tragic incident, Japan had gone through immense cultural and societal changes. Japan was in extreme poverty until the beginnings of the Sino-Japanese War, and World War II. Military leaders had taken control of the government, and the emperor no longer had any power. With this change, war and fighting became a priority to the country’s people (National Interest). During this time, children were explicitly raised to become soldiers. As stated in the article posted by the National Interest, elementary school children in Japan had begun learning drills during class time, practicing with wooden guns. Around the age of fourteen and fifteen, students would be enrolled in Army apprentice schools. Not only were children raised with a militaristic mindset, but they were also taught extreme racism towards the Chinese since the two countries had been fighting over the land known as Manchuria, which was just south of Russia, and north of today’s Koreas. This racism was enforced not only by society but by the textbooks that children read for their classes that claimed that the Chinese were “morally deficit”. These children were also raised with the constant reminder that individualism was useless to society, and the best thing to do is to be obedient (National Interest). With those teachings, the Japanese children were raised in a way that impacted their culture dramatically and assisted in one of the worst massacres known today. Imperialist Japan’s toxic and strict society was a cultural change for the worst, directly seen in the following events. During their training, the Japanese would be desensitized to violence and pain. Many would even die during their training. As stated in the previously used National Interest Article: Once a soldier was in the Army, his training emphasized obedience and loyalty over skilled weapon handling. Officers often lined up new soldiers to slap them in the face, punch them, or beat them with belts, sometimes until blood poured down their faces. “I do not beat you because I hate you. I beat you because I care for you” was a mantra used by officers. This mentality was the direct reason why the Japanese soldiers were able to easily be ruthless to the Chinese during the Rape of Nanjing. The militaristic society had desensitized the soldiers to the point where rape and murder were morally allowed. Along with desensitization, the soldiers were taught that it was better to die at war, then be held prisoner since it could be seen as a dishonor to their family, and they rather should commit suicide. This idea is similar to the historic shogun and samurai, where they would kill themselves through the act of seppuku, cutting their abdomens open with their katanas (National Interest). After Japan had won the Battle of Shanghai, the Japanese had felt they could take more control over China. Their target was Nanjing, a city of around one million people, that had recently become the capital of China over the previous few years. The troops, led by Matsui Iwane, began to travel through China to get to Nanjing. As they traveled, the soldiers would play killing games, and pillage towns they passed. The Chinese leader Chiang Kai-Shek commanded the Chinese troops to leave Nanjing, in order not to lose soldiers and told the civilians to stay put. Many did not listen to their leader as they heard of the attack and tried to evacuate as fast as they could (history.com). The first two days of the Imperial Japanese troops entering Nanjing were entitled to the City Entering Ceremony. The ceremony was considered the worst time period during the massacre. The main streets of the city had been covered in dead bodies by the end of the ceremony. Around the same period of time as well, the Tragedy at Yangzte River occurred, as the Chinese civilians hurried to escape Nanjing. The Japanese troops had arrived and began shooting at the people which were crossing the river. In that incident alone, an estimated fiftythousand people were killed and left on the shores of the river to rot (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). Women were raped of all ages, even young girls under the age of ten, and the elderly. Pregnant women and nuns were also not spared from the cruelty of the Imperial armies (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). The Imperial Japanese armies had believed that raping virgins would help make them stronger for battle, so virgins were held to a higher standard to them (National Interest). The New Jersey Hong Kong Network also explained that the rapes would take place in public as well, in the streets of the city, or in religious places. Some soldiers would even force sons to rape their mothers, and fathers to rape their daughters. The National Interest also specified that the Imperialist Japanese Military policy forbade the soldiers to rape, and those who did were encouraged to kill the woman afterward, which was why many women did not live after being raped. After the entrance ceremony, the Japanese soldiers began to capture those people who appeared to be Chinese soldiers. This caused the Chinese soldiers to hide and try to change into civilian clothing. The soldiers who were captured were brought out of the city and often killed with machine guns. If they somehow survived, they would be bayoneted. Other ways of being killed included, but were not limited to: “striking off the head, cutting open the abdomen, excavating the heart, decapitation (beheading), drowning, burning, punching the body and the eyes with an awl, and even castration or punching through the vagina”, as told by the New Jersey Hong Kong Network. The International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone had set up a safety camp for the citizens in order to heal and protect them, with it being roughly the size of Central Park in New York City. While Japan had mostly respected the area, they ended up claiming that order had been restored and tore it down in January, when the killings continued until February. Once the killings had finished, the Japanese had set up a puppet government there until the end of World War II (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). After the Rape of Nanjing, the city was barely one to live in. A third of all buildings in the city had been burned down, and almost all storefronts had been robbed of items, even if they were small things such as eggs. The capital was soon switched to Beijing (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). Japan had managed to hide the news of the massacre from its citizens extremely well, as the information was not open to the public until the Tokyo Trials after the war (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). The Tokyo Trials judged the war crimes committed by Japan during World War II held by the Allies. The trial consisted of twenty-eight defendants and over four-hundred witnesses. The trials lasted two and a half years (Morris). Morris Jr. of the National Interest lists some of the crimes as such: From the Rape of Nanking in 1937, when a quarter of a million residents of that city were killed in six weeks, to the mass murder of 18,000 Filipino men, women, and children at the village of Lipa; the Bataan Death March; the Siam-Burma Death Railroad; the forced labor camps and sex-slave “comfort women” in Korea The trial resulted in seven of the defendants receiving the death penalty and being hanged, including Matsui Iwane, the general who brought the first troops into Nanjing. Three of the defendants had died before the end of the trials, including one which had allegedly gone insane. The remainder were given life sentences, but a majority received parole a few years later (Morris Jr.). When the initial news spread of the previously-hidden war crimes, the Japanese people were absolutely shocked (New Jersey Hong Kong Network), and some said the charges given to the defendants were blatant racism (Morris Jr.). For a few decades, the topic of the massacre was almost never talked about, until around the early 1970s, when Japanese articles were being published claiming that the Nanjing massacre was faked, the death tolls were heightened, and that killing surrendered soldiers should not be considered a massacre, even though that was not the only crime committed during the Rape of Nanjing. Before this, there was no open acknowledgment from Japan regarding the Massacre (New Jersey Hong Kong Network). Outrage and protests were sparked in the 1990s, however, when the newly elected justice minister of Japan claimed the Rape of Nanjing was just a fabrication. Shigeto Nagano had been forced to retire after many other Asian countries threatened to cut off trade and relations due to his statement. While Nagano took back his claim, he soon made another statement that upset the population, saying that the invasion of Asia should not have been considered a war of aggression. Even though Nagano claimed the Rape of Nanjing was a fabrication, he had been a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and had visited Nanjing in the early 1940s (The Baltimore Sun). Today in Japan, most school textbooks do not discuss World War II, other than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and claiming the invasion of Japan as an advance (Morris Jr.). It took until 2013 for a public apology from a government official. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has made an open apology to China at the City University of Hong Kong for the war crimes committed by Japan, saying it was Japan’s full fault for the events which had happened. He had after visited the memorial hall at the University for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre. While it had taken over eighty years to gain this apology, it was the right direction, allowing for a better relationship with China in the future. The militaristic culture in Japan during the Imperial age was the cause of the horrid events committed during the Rape of Nanjing. The soldiers were desensitized and had been taught that obedience was the only important part of the military. The Imperial Japanese army showed cruelty that should never be possible from a group of humans, and their actions had proved why obedience should never be a priority in the area of morality. Even with imagery and documentation of the events, people will continue to disagree with its existence, and that could only be caused by internalized racism, mainly from the Japanese. While the world may not be able to get an exact death toll, there is no doubt that this event has impacted the functions of both Japan and China, no matter how many lives were lost.