Nanking massacre merits full accounting by Japanese

Sixty years ago last month the Japanese Imperialist army seized the city of Nanking, then the capital of nationalist China. Thereafter for seven weeks the Japanese hastily tortured, raped, mutilated and murdered an estimated 300,000 Chinese men, women and children.

This was not an isolated incident in the heat of battle. It was the official policy of the Japanese government, largely implemented by Emperor Hirohito's uncle, Prince Asaka Yasuhiko. Yet to this day the Japanese government, many Japanese historians and Japanese school textbooks go to lengths to either deny or minimize the genocide, also known as the Rape of Nanking. And unlike Germany, which has done much atone to the Jews for its deeds, Japan has done nothing to make amends for its war-time atrocities.

Fortunately, the first English language book on the subject. The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang (Basic Books), has recently been published, bringing this important topic to English readers. In addition, Rep. William Lipinski (D.-IHl.) and some 30 Democrat and Republican co-sponsors, have introduced HR 126, the Japanese War Crimes Resolution. This would demand that Japan issue a formal apology for its "atrocious crimes" committed both in Nanking and against American POWs and "immediately pay reparations to the victims."

"For more than half a century, we have ignored the shameful behavior of Japan toward military and civilian POWs during World War II," said Lipinski. "It is high time that the Japanese government step up to the plate and do the right thing"

"It is my intention that the whole world know the truth about Nanking," Iris Chang told HUMAN EVENTS: "I don't want people to forget about the magnitude of this atrocity." "Unlike the atomic explosions in Japan or the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, the horrors of the massacre at Nanking remain virtually unknown to people outside Asia," Chang says in her book. "The massacre remains neglected in most of the historical literature published in the United States."

Documented Horrors That Occurred in Nanking

The horrors that occurred in Nanking, as documented in Chang's book, include the following:

Killing-by-decapitation contests-victims heads were used to keep score.

Victims partially buried and then hacked to pieces by swords, run over by horses and tanks, or mauled and eaten by dogs.

Prisoners nailed to boards and run over by tanks, crucified to trees and electrical posts where their flesh was carved from their bodies and where soldiers used them for bayonet practice.

Large crowds of victims killed by mass-incineration with gasoline and kerosene, ignited and exploded with hand grenades and gunfire.

"The Japanese saturated victims in acid, impaled babies with bayonets, hung people by their tongues." As one Japanese soldier, Hakudo Nagatomi has revealed: "Soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive into pots of boiling water."

Some Japanese engaged in cannibalism, and "[t]he carving of organs and the roasting of humans became routine."

An estimated 80,000 women and children were raped at all hours in the middle of the street, "and in front of crowds of witnesses," and in "nunneries, churches, and Bible training schools." Women in their eighties "were raped to death." "Little girls were raped so brutally that some could not walk for weeks. .. Chinese witnesses saw Japanese rape girls under ten years of age in the streets and then slash them in half with a sword... . After gang rape, Japanese soldiers sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out their fetuses for amusement." Many women and children were shot or bayoneted to death after being raped. Their breasts and other body-parts were often sliced off or mutilated.

`Oskar Schlindler Of Nanking'

The death toll in Nanking exceeds that of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and that of civilian deaths during the war in Britain, France and Belgium combined. One of the few bright lights in all this darkness was the International Safety Zone in Nanking, where approximately 200,000 civilians sought protection. This zone was operated by foreigners, mostly American Christians. But it was directed, ironically, by a local Nazi official, John Rabe, whom Chang calls the "Oskar Schindler of Nanking." He helped save the lives of countless Chinese.

Rabe chronicled the slaughter in Nanking in a diary and even obtained filmed footage, which he gave to top Nazi officials in 1938, urging them to help stop the carnage. Rabe even appealed to Adolf Hitler in a letter. The Gestapo interrogated Rabe and ordered him to keep quiet. Rabe's diary was located by Chang in Germany.

Very few Japanese officials responsible for the Nanking massacre faced judgment during the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. The Japanese royal family was exempted from prosecution. Many of the Japanese responsible for the massacre are treated as heroes today, their memories enshrined in Japan. Others are still living on their pensions.

Chang concludes that one of the factors responsible for the massacre was the statist concentration of power in Japan and emphasis on "the greater cause," the collective, as opposed to the individual, she told HUMAN EVENTS. "[Mhe sheer concentration of power in government is lethal."