This is a real incident, with real testimony, and a real war between the Japanese and Chinese in the Second Sino-Japanese war on 13 December 2007 – Nanking massacre. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed Chinese soldiers were murdered in 6-week period of time. This movie is actually a documentary featuring the personal experiences of the Chinese survivors, as well as the foreigners who set up the Nanking safety zone to protect the remaining Chinese civilians in the city.

One of the most touching moment was an account by a Chinese survivor, who recounted his days when the Japanese troops tried to kill his mother with a knife but his mother continue to breast-feed his sister, where the latter was still a baby, knowing nothing about the war. The typical humming sounds produced by Japanese “Zero” fighter jets were the nightmares of innocent Chinese civilians living there.

However, concerned foreigners worked in Nanking at that time like German businessman and doctors who tried to set up a refugee camp to protect the Chinese civilians from Japanese troops. This movie also includes the personal experiences of retired Japanese soldiers who served in the Imperial Japanese army. They had recalled what they had done during the war including sexual assault to Chinese women, without hold back anything. I can say that the content of the movie is balanced because it takes into account both sides of the conflict Chinese civilians and Japanese soldiers in the war.

I recommend this movie to all readers who would like to learn more about Nanking massacre because it documented all the testimonies and real incidents of Nanking massacre at that time. This is also a good movie that remind of people about the extent of damage that a war can bring.

Nanking Massacre:

Nanking Massacre was one of the most gruesome massacres in history. Nearly three hundred thousand Chinese civilians had lost their lives at Nanking. All this took place between December 1937 and February 1938; the time Japanese occupied part of China. They buried people alive and mutilated them. They killed them by fire and by ice. They unleashed wild dogs on them to maraud and kill them.

The Chinese head, beheaded by Japanese, is wedged in a barricade near Nanking just before the fall of the city

Image via wikipedia

There used to be a killing contest among Japanese soldiers. They competed with each other. The aim was to determine who is able to kill the fastest? Japanese raped women of all classes, young and old. They did not spare even Buddhist Nuns and pregnant women. To amuse themselves they used to rip open the belly of pregnant women after raping them; and they even removed their fetuses. They raped not only the women, but they sodomized men too. They asked them to perform repulsive acts. They made fathers rape their own daughters; sons their own mothers; and brothers their own sisters.

These are the excerpts quoted from Iris Chang’s non-fiction best seller, which she wrote in 1997.

Babi Yar Massacre:

Babi Yar is a ravine in Kiev, Ukraine. At this location Friedrich Jeckeln; Otto Rasch; Paul Blobel; and others had committed genocide on 29th and 30th September 1941 and on some later dates. They killed nearly 150,000 people including Ukrainians; Gypsies; Soviets POWs; and Jews. It happened to be the largest two days massacre during Holocaust. The place is also famous for Syrets concentration camp, which was located in this area.

Ravine of the dead

Image via Wikipedia

They ordered people including men, women and children to march towards the ravine fully naked. They shot them in such a way that they fell on those who were already dead. There were layers of corpses. Dina Pronicheva, an actress of the Kiev Puppet theatre gave an eyewitness account. She herself was the victim, but after being shot she escaped. She pretended to be dead and crawled out of the earth. She lived to tell about everything that happened on that fateful day.

There is still more to come in Part III. Please bear with me.

continued…

More article on this topic from achilles2010

Are We Human; Then How Human We Are?

What led to the enormity of the sheer wickedness and barbarity displayed by the Japanese Imperial Army towards the Chinese?

Why did the Japanese Army and their Generals act with such impunity & heartlessness?

These were the questions that raced through my mind as I read the tragic story of the Chinese people at Nanking.

The Japanese had just overpowered the Chinese Army at the battle fields of Shanghai. After the defeat, 50,000 Japanese soldiers marched into the city of Nanking, then capital city of China, and proceeded to massacre a total of about 300,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians.

The Massacre of the Chinese POWs (Prisoners of War) & Civilians

Some of the Chinese soldiers had already been captured by the Japanese Army at the outskirts of the city of Nanking. As soon as they [Japanese Army] entered Nanking, they rounded up some civilians and young men who they suspected were soldiers (most of the Chinese soldiers that escaped had changed into civilian clothes to avoid detection). They were marched out of the city to be massacred. Most were shot with machine guns and the ones suspected to still be alive were individually bayoneted. In some cases, they were gassed to death and their bodies dumped in mass graves. The Japanese Army also shot indiscriminately at civilians within the city. Thousands died this way.

The Unsuccessful Escape Attempts

A large number of refugees tried to flee by crossing the Yangtze River. Unfortunately, there were no means of transportation. The Japanese arrived and shot at the people at the river bank and even those that were trying to get away by swimming. The whole river was littered with dead bodies of children and adults. An approximate number of 50,000 died this way.

The Japanese also managed to infiltrate the safety zones that were established by some American and European Missionaries, businessmen and doctors. Several Chinese were murdered even in the safety zone areas.

Other Atrocities Committed

The Japanese employed barbaric means of executing their carnage. They shot, stabbed, beheaded, burnt and drowned their victims. There were even more horrid cases of cutting open abdomens, excavation of human hearts, and castration.

Raping & Killings

20,000 women were raped. This included girls under 8, women over 70 and even pregnant women. Some Japanese soldiers even forced fathers to rape their daughters and sons to rape their mothers while they watched. Those who declined were killed.

Pillaging, Burning & Vandalism

Jewelry, money, animals, food, clothes and even items of lower or insignificant value were looted. The Chinese were sometimes forced to carry their loot.

Buildings were set on fire and people that tried to escape from the burning buildings were murdered.

These heinous crimes were committed and apart from the few missionaries that were in China at the time, no help was forthcoming. Even though some of the perpetrators were punished for crimes against humanity, nothing can compensate for the pains caused and the thousands of lives that were lost.