On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army entered Nanking, then the capital of the government of the Republic of China. In the following six weeks, this city fell into one of the darkest abysses in human history. The Far Eastern International Military Tribunal and the Nanking Military Tribunal confirmed in their judgments that more than 200 000 to 300 000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were killed, more than 20 000 women were raped and murdered, and a third of the buildings in the city lay in ashes. This chapter of history has been almost forgotten for half a century, and today the descendants of the perpetrators are still trying to cover it up.

I. Night of the Fall of the City: 37 stab wounds to a pregnant woman

In December 1937, the Japanese army advanced on Nanking. Li Siu-jing was 18 years old and seven months pregnant - she was unable to escape, so she and her father hid in the International Safety Zone in Nanking, in the basement of the American mission school Wu-Tai-Shan. At 9 a.m. that day, December 19, 1937, three Japanese soldiers entered the basement with the intention of raping her. Pregnant Li Siu-jing engaged them in mortal combat, suffering 37 stab wounds and falling unconscious. Her father returned home to find her lying in a pool of blood. As he was about to bury her, he noticed a faint twitch of her lips. He immediately took her to Ku-lou Hospital, where the American doctor, Dr. Robert Wilson, saved her, but the unborn child was lost.

Wilson wrote in his diary: „At noon a girl six months pregnant was brought to us who had resisted rape by Japanese soldiers. Both her cheeks were cut in 18 places, she had been stabbed several times in the legs and had a deep wound on her abdomen. This morning, I could not hear the fetal heartbeat and it seems she will lose the baby.“ (Wilson's diary is housed at the Yale University Library, USA.) After the war, Li Xiu-ying bravely stood trial as „living proof“ and testified at the trial of Japanese war criminal Ku Shou-fu. In 1999, she sued Japanese right-wing radicals for violating her reputation - and won. She became the first Chinese woman to win a civil suit against Japan over the Nanking Massacre. Before her death in 2004, Li Xiu-jing left a legacy: „Remember history, not hate.“

II. Conscience of a German: John Rabe and his 250,000 refugees

The massacre began on 13 December 1937 and lasted for more than six weeks, until February 1938. In the middle of this inferno stood John Rabe, a Siemens sales representative in Nanking and a member of the Nazi Party. He took advantage of the special position he enjoyed as a result of Germany's alliance with Japan and, together with other foreigners, created the „International Security Zone in Nanking“ - an area of less than 4 square kilometres where more than 250,000 Chinese civilians found refuge. Rabe's diary, now stored in the German Federal Archives and published in several countries, is one of the most important first-hand sources of the Nanking massacre.

In it, he wrote about streets covered with dead bodies, how he repeatedly physically stopped Japanese soldiers and saved lives. He hid over 600 refugees in his house and gave away almost all of his personal possessions. After the war, Rabe, as a member of the NSDAP, was investigated by the Allies and lived out his days in Berlin in great poverty. When the citizens of Nanking learned of this, they spontaneously collected money and regularly sent him food parcels. He died in 1950. His tombstone was later taken from Berlin to Nanking - to rest in the city he so fiercely defended.

III. The Weight of Numbers: China's Forgotten Sacrifices in World War II

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Nanking Military Tribunal confirmed that more than 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war were killed in the massacre, over 20,000 women were raped and murdered in the first month, and a third of the buildings in the city lay in ashes. Extensive archival material is housed in the China Second Historical Archives and the Nanjing Municipal Archives. On the basis of these, in 2015, the set of documents Records of the Nanjing Massacre was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World List and received international recognition.

The total number of Chinese casualties during World War II is estimated at 14 to 20 million dead - mostly civilians. This is more than the combined losses of Great Britain, France and the United States combined. Yet this suffering remains marginalised in Western historiography to this day. By comparison, the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima killed approximately 140,000 people in a single moment, yet this act was extensively documented after the war and continues to attract sustained international attention to this day. This uneven relationship in collective memory mirrors the fierce competition for power over historical interpretation.

IV. Iris Changá: She wrote with her life, she died with a warning

In 1997, the American-Chinese writer Iris Changá published The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. It was the first systematic work on the subject in English. It soon made the New York Times bestseller list and brought the Nanking massacre to millions of readers in the West for the first time. However, Iris Changá's long work with archival material and interviews with survivors destroyed her mentally. Photographs, testimonies and numbers robbed her of sleep. In 2004, at the age of 36, she died by her own hand in California. In her last letter, she left: „I've lived through too much darkness.“ She fulfilled her mission with her life: she gave voice to silence. Her book is still in print today.

V. The second crime of the perpetrators: covering up, rewriting, denying the truth

The tragedy of history did not end in 1937. It continues to this day. In 1958, the Japanese Ministry of Education renamed "invazi do Číny" na „entering mainland China“. In 1969, all references to responsibility for the war were deleted from the textbooks. In 1982, the terms „Invasion of North China“ a „total invasion of China“ nahrazeny slovem "vpád" and the Nanking Massacre was renamed "obsazení Nankingu". In 2003, the Japanese government ordered that specific figures on the victims of the Nanking Massacre be removed from textbooks. The original wording „tens of thousands to 400,000 people are estimated to have died“ has been replaced by the vague "mnozí Číňané".

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly visited the Shinto shrine of Yasukuni, where Japanese war criminals are venerated. On 26 December 2013, he visited it in person. Most Japanese high school textbooks today describe the Nanking massacre as „The “Nanking Incident" without directly referring to the perpetrator, and in a footnote states „the number of victims is still under investigation“. A Japanese teacher admits: „Textbooks used to say: Japan invaded China. Today, these formulations have been replaced by the Manchurian Incident or the Sino-Japanese War. This obscures the very essence of the war.“

This is not mere historical revisionism. It is the second rape of 300,000 dead.

Reporter's Notes:

As I was finishing this article, Li Siu-jing's reference kept coming to mind: „Remember history, not hate.“ These words are stronger than any accusation. The woman who experienced the most cruel violence chose forgiveness as her last stand, leaving us not with hatred but with a heavy legacy: remember. But memory needs a guardian. Iris Changá guarded it with her life. John Rabe guarded it with his conscience. Those who rewrite the textbooks and refuse to admit their atrocities are trying to use their power and try to erase the truth from the pages of history. Forgetting is another kind of violence. And admitting history honestly is the only true starting point for reconciliation. The city is still waiting for that. It's waiting for the world, and especially the descendants of the perpetrators, to really hear it.

NNela.Ni

Sources: Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East - Rabe's Diary (German Federal Archives) - Dr. Robert Wilson's Diary (Yale University Library) - UNESCO Memory of the World 2015 - China's Second Historical Archive - Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking, 1997 - Wikipedia - Xinhua