The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II by Iris Chang (PDF)

Description

The New York Times bestselling account of one of history’s most brutal — and forgotten — massacres, when the Japanese army destroyed China’s capital city on the eve of World War II In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers, that of the Chinese, and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety zone, which saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang’s classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.”Chang vividly, methodically, records what happened, piecing together the abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror.” – Adam Hochschild, Salon

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Iris Chang’s “The Rape of Nanking” is a horrifying and gruesome account of the infamous “Rape of Nanjing” where in less than a two month span from 1937-1938, an estimated 200,000-450,000 captured Chinese civilians and unarmed, surrendering solders were massacred and/or raped in cold blood by the Japanese Military during World War II. It is also about the aftermath of the massacre in a historical sense, and the toll it has had on the victims, historians, and the world, especially Sino-Japanese relations.Chang’s writing is intense, emotional, detailed, and thought provoking. Given that her grandparents were from Nanjing and narrowly escaped their own fate from the hell of what happened there, we must read this with an understanding that Chang is inherently biased in her accounts and at times comes off as extremely emotional in her contempt of the Japanese in certain passages.Despite her bias, she desperately tries to stay objective in her accounts, though not always successfully (the passage, even despite the cited references, on Japanese being cannibals of murdered chinese male’s genitalia seemed highly questionable and speculative).Chang makes strides in her discussion of historiology by pointing out the cancer of how history is manipulated by politics, government intervention, propaganda, radical Conservatism/Liberalism, diplomacy and political events. Because of the “Cold War”, “Sino-Japanese relations”, WWII itself” and “US-Japanese allegiances”, the events of Nanjing have been eerily and perhaps permanently distorted at the expense of 100’s of thousands of innocent victims.The book is well organized and informative although I question her premise which nearly implies that American society and that even Japanese society is ignorant of the events that occurred in Nanjing in 1937-1938. In her premise for writing the book, she attempts to imply that there was nearly no literary English reference to the Rape of Nanjing and provided only two literary accounts in English (both written 50 years after the “Rape”) of this massacre. However, she failed to site the well documented account of this Massacre in the famous military television documentary seen by millions of Americans and Europeans in the 1970s, “The World at War” where Sir Laurence Olivier made a very clear historical historical reference while footage was shown of the massacre including General Matsui’s march on horse through the streets of Nanjing and footage of tied Chinese captives murdered execution style while on their knees and hands tied behind their backs:”It was here that Nanking in December 1937 that the Japanese perpetrated what was until then, one of the worst atrocities of this century when their troops massacred more than 200,000 Chinese in cold blood.There is also a minor question statistic she references with respect to the number of Americans killed in the Korean ar which she noted 34,000. In Washington DC, the memorial noted over 54,000 Americans dead. But, to Chang’s credit, as I’ve learned in this book, accounting for the number of dead is never an absolute accuracy. For example, is a person dying of a disease or out of accident during war considered having been killed in a war? That’s highly subjective. An American bias would count that death as a casualty of war whereby Pro Chinese or North Korean source might not accounts for that death. Both have case to include or exclude that number from the number of casualties.The most interesting passages relate to Chang’s discussion of the acts of humanity during this catastrophe, specifically of the spectacular irony of how John Rabe, an educated German who even held a strong Nazi fervor (the Nazi’s were allies of Japan during the war) was responsible for saving the lives of over 300,000 Chinese by setting up a miniscule 2.5 square mile safety zone within proximity of where the Rape and Massacre happened.My favorite passage in this entire book was on her research of what happened to John Rabe after he left Nanjing. It was beautifully written and had me reading copiously to find her resolution on what happened to this “Schindler of Nanjing.”Poignant also was her research on the outcomes of other European and Americans who were in Nanjing during the siege and how politics ostracized these heros whose humanitarian efforts went unnoticed.In her introduction, Iris Chang mused that her “greatest hope is that this book will inspire other authors and historians to investigate the stories of Nanjing” and that it will “stir the conscience of Japan to accept responsibility for this incident.This book should really inspire the world to skeptically evaluate their own histories with a fine tooth comb given the Japanese Government’s attempt to undermine what happened in Nanking.On a side note, this book also inspires me to read more of the Jewish communities who fled Nazi Persecution Europe to live in Shangahi, which had been coincidentally the starting point of Japanese occupation prior to the capture of Nanjing. This book also inspires me to research the horror of the Bataan Death March and of the mass burials that occurred in Hong Kong, other areas of China, the Phillipines and other areas that had been seized by the Imperialist Japanese forces during WWII.

⭐This book was the effort from Chinese/American author Iris Chang to raise awareness of the horrifying events of December, 1937, when Nanking, then the capital of China was, along with Manchuria at large and nearby Shanghai attacked by Japanese forces who would carry out one of humanity’s most brutal, sick and inexcusable acts the world ever knew. Already blazing a trail of murder by the thousands of Chinese civilians and anybody suspected of being a Chinese soldier, they took this to psychotic levels in Nanking. The details of the seven weeks of torture, mass killings and rapes are so putrid it is not advisable to discuss them here. While the Holocaust of Jews in Germany outnumbered the dead in Nanking, where most estimates hover around 350,000 deaths, most of them civilians – women, men, children, infants – it didn’t matter to the Japanese, what made the Rape of Nanking stand out was the speed in which the atrocities occurred, in just over a one month period before a full military occupation took hold and residents were allowed to return home but forced to obey the Japanese unless they wanted to be killed for even the slightest implication of an insult or unwillingness to do what they were told. Chang argues that while the U.S. especially demanded rightfully so severe reparations from Nazi Germany, and dutifully executed most of the high ranking officials and many many underlings, with Mao Tse Tung’s takeover of China in 1946 and Chiang Kai-Shek’s exile to Taiwan which meant communism China style, the U.S., while trying and executing some Japanese officials, including some for the equally brutal Bataan march, they feared communism and pumped billions into the Japanese economy and ignored for the most part the horrifying deeds their Army committed so America could have an “ally” near Russia and China. Thus, Japan skated, and systematically excluded the rape of Nanking, Bataan and other atrocities from schools and universities. Those who did dare to demand Japan admit responsibility, many Japanese scholars and journalists, were faced with death threats, protests, and vile denials in the right wing media. Her efforts were not in vain, as the book was a best seller and Japanese officials even as late as 1998 were forced to come clean after a fashion and at least one offered a formal apology to the citizens of Nanking and China. Tragically, because she suffered from bi polar disorder, and a severe case of it, coupled with the stress of promoting her book, making speeches all over and sadly becoming more paranoid as the disease progressed, Iris Chang suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide in 2004. While she was not a direct victim of the Rape, her parents and grandparents told her many stories of what happened, and combined with the very thorough research she compiled, it is quite possible the very horror of the event could have contributed to her mental illness. She would not be alone, as thousands of victims who did live suffered severe health problems after being maimed, burned and otherwise tortured. One woman who worked at a university in Nanking during this holocaust was so effected by the brutality, gore and misery that she too succumbed to her own suicide. We can’t fairly hold the Japanese collectively responsible as most are long gone. But to shove this terror under the proverbial rug only allows a population or armed forces of any nation the potential given the effectiveness of the nationwide propaganda and sense of nationalism to be just as bad. Witness Kosovo – the U.S. was involved as much to cover up Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky as any sense of duty, and the ethnic cleansing that took place was an equal horror. Tanzania, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, attacking Iraq for 9-11 when it was totally innocent – hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis died for war profiteering and a not so subtle Islamic genocide because George W. Bush wanted it. We are no better than any other nation when it comes to the ability and willingness to use propaganda, controlled media and lies to commit terrible crimes for money and power. Chang valiantly tried to warn all of us that as the saying goes, those who ignore and obfuscate or destroy history are condemned to repeat it, and we do so over and over and over. This book is must reading, along with “Tears in the Darkness”, a great book about the Bataan march of 1942, to remind all of us that as a species, we do not have to act like the tyrants leaders worldwide demand us to do.

⭐I bought this book over 2 years ago and for some reason, couldn’t find myself to read it. I knew about the horrors on what happened in Nanking, and had briefly researched it on Wiki, but I couldn’t do it.It called to me yesterday and I have just finished it today. Iris brilliantly expressed what many cannot. The stories of those who suffered, true victims of which many perhaps, only brought to light by her book/research, deeply wounded me. Words cannot describe how the way they suffered makes me feel. People like you and me, treated in this inhumane way, is heart wrenching. The Leaders in the Safety Zone are real heroes. Their bravery in the face of death left me open-mouth in shock and awe. All the stories within the book will remain with me forever. I hope those whose stories haven’t been told, those who unfortuantely, were sileneced and justice not served are shared with the world eventually, for they deserve to be told.I am grateful to have read her work and will try my best to share what she wrote and her book to others that may be interested in what happened in Nanking. I hope that someday, it is recognised for what it is, an event in history that should never be forgotten and is rememebered.

⭐Devastating book; absolutely devastating. It’ll make you cry, will upset you greatly but worth a read. I was recommended this book by a friend I go to uni with and I’d like to think of myself as a tough cookie, but this one got me good.

⭐A very informative book which does not hold its punches when it comes to the atrocities that happened. I did not know that Japan still wont admit that it happened and apologise. The paperback has a few pictures which are disturbing however they do add a sense of reality as I kept reading I found myself thinking no one is this cruel!! I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in ww2 history.

⭐This is a very powerful story of what went on in Nanking about how the people there were treated by the Japanese. it made me cry and am very angry to think humans can treat other humans in this way. Please read this for yourselves and decide what you think.

⭐This happened in the 20th century; committed by an advanced educated people. The perverted precision of what these Japanese soldiers did needs to be more widely understood. Crimes such as this should not have been allowed to be repeated, but they have been – several times on most continents. We must educate all children what man is capable of to help guard against it.

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