Tania in China

The Nanjing Massacre

For an hour this morning we have been hearing air-raid sirens going off. It sounded like the fire siren back home, but somebody finally explained to me that it was to commemorate the anniversary of the beginning of the Nanjing Massacre.

From wikipedia:

The Nanjing Massacre, commonly known as "The Rape of Nanking", refers to the most well-known of the war crimes committed by the Japanese military carried out by Japanese troops in and around Nanjing (also known in English as Nanking), China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the period of carnage lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938.

During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, a large number of innocent men were wrongfully identified as enemy combatants and killed, or simply killed in any event as the massacre gathered momentum. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.

The extent of the atrocities is hotly debated, with numbers ranging from some Japanese claims of several hundred to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000. A number of Japanese researchers consider 100,000-200,000 be an approximate value. Other nations usually believe the death toll to be between 150,000-300,000. This number was first promulgated in January of 1938 by Harold Timperly, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, based on reports from contemporary eyewitnesses. Many other sources, including Iris Chang's commercially-successful The Rape of Nanking, also promote 300,000 as the death toll.

posted by Tania @ 3:11 PM