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A
Review of The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
by
Begetta Crisp
Chang,
I. (1997) The rape of Nanking : The forgotten holocaust of World War II.
Read by Anna Fields. Blackstone Audio books: Oregon.
Chang,
I. (1997) The rape of Nanking : The forgotten holocaust of World War II.
Basic Books: New York.
Iris
Chang, 29, is a full-time writer with an agenda.
She wants the world to be aware of the atrocities committed by Japan
during its occupation of China between 1937 and 1945 as well as Japan’s
failure to make restitution for its “war crimes” during this occupation.
Chang did her homework!
She uses
primary sources extensively.
The
documentation provided in The Rape of Nanking has been acknowledged
as significant by several scholars. For example,
Kourvetaris (2001) writes, “ Anyone interested in the
Holocaust or in Stalin’s
purges should read Chang’s work for a similar atrocity in a
different locale and another culture.”
In the words of Peter Li (2000), professor of East Asian Studies at Rutgers
University, “As Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Jewish
Holocaust and Nazi atrocities in World War II, Nanking has become the symbol
of the Japanese military's monstrous and savage cruelty in the Asian Pacific
War from 1931-1945.”
Written
from three perspectives, Chang presents the rape of Nanking from the
viewpoint of the Japanese soldiers who participated in the atrocities, the
victims and other Chinese citizens who lived through this occupation, and
that of Europeans and Americans living in Nanking at the time.
All three perspectives stretch the capacity of human beings to fathom
the degree of cruelty.
From
the perspective of the Japanese soldiers, Chang describes Japanese military
training in the destruction of their enemies.
Unable to feed all their prisoners, it was military policy to murder
prisoners of war. What
was worse, soldiers used prisoners for bayonet practice. Women suffered
most; rape is reported as embedded in the Japanese military. Thousands of
women, as young as eight and as old as eighty, were raped and then, many
murdered. For example, one Japanese soldier quoted in Chang’s work spoke
openly about the rape of Chinese women stating, "no matter how young or
old they could not all escape the fate of being raped... each was allocated
to fifteen or twenty soldiers for sexual intercourse and abuse."
Although official forbidden, soldiers did not take this regulation
seriously and rape seemed to perpetuate the madness of war.
Furthermore, the official edict against rape seems to have only
encouraged soldiers to kill their victims. Azuma
Shiro, a Japanese soldier in Nanking at the time is quoted as saying,
"...it would be alright if we just raped them ... but we always stabbed
and killed them because dead bodies don't talk." Chang repeatedly
quotes Japanese soldiers who seemed to have no remorse for their acts of
sadistic rape and murder.
Chang
then provides a second perspective, through the eyes and words of the
Chinese citizens who lived through this period of history in Nanking. For
example, a Chinese man, named Tang, was captured and taken with hundreds of
others to a rectangular pit where at least sixty Chinese lay dead in it
already. Chang
quotes Tang’s recollection of one of the games played by Japanese soldiers
with the Chinese prisoners.
The game was a "killing contest” wherein
there was a competition to see who could kill the most Chinese the
fastest. Perhaps
the most gripping part of Tang’s testimony was his remembrance of a
pregnant Chinese woman who began to fight for her life when a Japanese
soldier started to drag her
away and rape her. No
one moved to help. Tang states, "... in the end the soldier killed her
ripping open her belly with his bayonet and jerking not only her intestines
but a squirming fetus..." (Tape 3, side l). Tang survived only by
falling into the pit under a man whom was decapitated directly in front of
him. Chang documents testimony from an abundance of primary sources of
stories like Tangs.
The
Third perspective is presented
through the eyes of a group of Europeans and Americans living in
Nanking at the time of the Japanese occupation. One such European was John
Rabe, a German Nazi and loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler. Rabe
was also the leader of the "International Safety Zone" in
Nanking. Ms.
Chang, who discovered Rabe's diaries while doing research for this book,
calls Rabe the "Oscar Schindler of China." (Tape 4 side 2) Rabe
was responsible for saving the lives of nearly three-hundred thousand
Chinese men, women and children in the safety zone. Chang provides details
of the works of other “righteous” Europeans and Americans in this third
section of her book.
The
Rape of Nanking is
thorough and concise. It has numerous qualities. Excellent citations from
primary sources fill the pages of this book. Chang's ability to analyze
letters, eyewitness testimonies, and diaries is thorough and professional.
Her journalistic background and ability to turn words to make the accounts
nightmarish and haunting. This book is recommended to those who wish to
“remember” the fate of innocent victims as well as those who wish to
teach that the risk of atrocity runs through all cultures and times.
Li,
P. Ph.D. (2000) The
Nanking holocaust tragedy, trauma and reconciliation , Society; Vol.
37, Iss. 2; pp. 56-66.
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