[61], On 5 February 2009, the Japanese Supreme Court ordered Shd Higashinakano and the publisher Tendensha to pay four million yen in damages to Mrs. Shuqin Xia, who claims to be the 7- or 8-year-old girl who appears in Magee's film. Numbers smaller or larger than the empirically verifiable, scholarly valid victimization range have been put forward by Japanese revisionists and the China Communist Party. All we are asking in our protest is that you restore order among your troops and get the normal city life going as soon as possible. After the war, multiple Japanese military officers and Kki Hirota, former Prime Minister of Japan and foreign minister during the atrocities, were found guilty of war crimes and executed. [183], In December 2007, the PRC government published the names of 13,000 people who were killed by Japanese troops in the Nanjing Massacre. Some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in, and many others were shot by the Chinese supervisory unit as they tried to flee.[21]. [44] Most Japanese ultranationalists who deny the Nanking Massacre admit that the Japanese Army killed a large number of Chinese POWs, though they consider these to be legal executions,[45][46] an argument denounced by mainstream historians. "[91] However, Masahiro Yamamoto printed a rebuttal of Gluck's statement in his book Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity, arguing that "To determine the extent and nature of [Japan's] responsibility, the 'numerological arguments about the death count and distinctions of comparative atrocities,' which [Gluck] termed as irrelevant to the moral question, are essential. The death toll of 300,000 is the official estimate engraved on the stone wall at the entrance of the "Memorial Hall for Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military's Nanking Massacre . 18 I Ho Lu, Japanese soldiers wanted a man's cigarette case and when he hesitated, one of the soldier crashed in the side of his head with a bayonet. [31] Nevertheless, even if Ch took the initiative, Asaka was nominally the officer in charge and gave no orders to stop the carnage. [84], In late January 1938, the Japanese army forced all refugees in the Safety Zone to return home, immediately claiming to have "restored order". Therefore, according to journalists Asami Kazuo and Suzuki Jiro, writing in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun of December 13, they decided to begin another contest to kill 150 people.[40]. [71] In The Cambridge History of China, historian Lloyd Eastman asserted that the death toll was "at least 42,000",[72] whereas military officer Frank Dorn wrote in his book The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41 that the death toll was "over 200,000 civilians". [47][48], The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that the massacre took place in the parts of Nanking captured on December 13, 1937, and after and lasted until early February 1938. 5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanjing and demanded entrance. Answer (1 of 16): 1. 2. Instead of refuting the allegations, the interviewed veterans confirmed that a massacre had taken place and openly described and admitted to taking part in the atrocities. In one estimate the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal put the death toll at more than 300,000, though the Tribunal also recorded other estimates including one of 430,000. The U.S., which served as the melting pot of cultures and is home to descendants of members of both Chinese and Japanese cultures, took up the mantle of investigator for the victimized Chinese. A Japanese hotelier's denial of a 1937 massacre by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing has prompted Chinese social media calls for a boycott of travel to Japan, threatening tourist . At the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals, the Nanking Massacre death toll was presented either as "more than . On 19 December 1937, the Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:[46]. Death toll of the Nanjing Massacre Last updated May 04, 2022. From Jurong to Tangshan (two cities in Jiangshu Province, China), Mukai had killed 89 people while Noda had killed 78. The mass murder at the Yangtze river was just one of the tragedies of the Nanking Massacre. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. On 13 December, the 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army were the first to enter the city, facing little military resistance. The total death toll of the Nanjing Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. He assigned Asaka to Nanjing as an opportunity to make amends. The Japanese government had previously agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces, and the members of the Committee managed to persuade the Chinese government to move their troops out of the area. [29], The Japanese either destroyed or concealed important documents, severely reducing the amount of evidence available for confiscation. On May 1, 1946, SCAP officials interrogated Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city at the height of the atrocities, about his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre and the deposition was submitted to the International Prosecution Section of the Tokyo tribunal. [60] On 13 December 1937, John Rabe wrote in his diary: It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. [94][96], Historian Tokushi Kasahara states "more than 100,000 and close to 200,000, or maybe more. One of the books by Hs, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, was also adduced in court. A People's Liberation Army honor guard bearing large funeral wreaths marched slowly past a memorial showing the figure 300,000, China's official death toll in the events of December 1937, as . The massacre occurred over a six-week period starting on December 13, 1937, the day the Japanese captured Nanking. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. [41], Since then Kasahara has proposed a definition between these two. [clarification needed], In 1984, in an attempt to refute the allegations of war crimes in Nanjing, the Japanese Army Veterans Association (Kaikosha) interviewed former Japanese soldiers who had served in the Nanjing area from 1937 to 1938. Many innocent men were misidentified and killed.[1]. Although most sources suggest that the final phase of the battle consisted of a one-sided slaughter of Chinese troops by the Japanese, some Japanese historians maintain that the remaining Chinese military still posed a serious threat to the Japanese. [25] Since then the death toll of the massacre has been a major topic of discussion among historians across the world. Again, one . Title. On December 11, Rabe found that Chinese soldiers were still residing in areas of the Safety Zone, meaning that it became an intended target for Japanese attacks despite the majority being innocent civilians. It was truly a regrettable act of barbarity. Durdin, F. Tillman. The baby was killed with a bayonet. [9] The number of Chinese soldiers in plain clothes that were executed is estimated to be around 4,000. Recent. [9], On December 12, under heavy artillery fire and aerial bombardment, General Tang Sheng-chi ordered his men to retreat. However, death toll estimates vary widely with some ranging as low as 40,000 . "[137], The debate concerning the massacre took place mainly in the 1970s, according to Higashinakano Shudo. [note 1] The massacre was one of the worst atrocities committed during World War II.[6]. See: Death toll of the Nanking Massacre. [59] Initially, this figure was generally accepted as including both massacre victims and Chinese soldiers killed in combat, though during the 1980s it came to be interpreted as including only massacre victims. While the books' take on Nanjing is stilted and feels like the product of a committee, in various versions they acknowledge the deaths of thousands of Chinese including women and children, as well as looting, arson and assaults by Japanese soldiers. Quite the same Wikipedia. Hempel's hotel was broken into as well, as [was] almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road.[61]. Nanjing Death Toll Graph. [58], The official stance of the People's Republic of China is that 300,000 or more Chinese were massacred in Nanking. That day, the prime minister and the Japanese Emperor Akihito pronounced statements of mourning at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. [28], David Askew, a historian at Ritsumeikan University, states that the death toll of the Nanking Massacre can be calculated by modern-day historians on the basis of four types of sources. According to Xinhua News Agency, it is the most complete record to date. [21], After the end of the war between China and Japan in 1945, these estimates were in turn supplanted by the findings of two war crime trials, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East and the Nanking War Crimes Tribunal. [50] Honda argued that the Japanese Army's atrocities had not suddenly started when the Japanese reached the city of Nanking proper on December 13, but rather were part of a continuous process which started soon after the Japanese Army left Shanghai early in November. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1949. [56][57] Robert O. Wilson, a physician, testified that cases of gun wounds "continued to come in [to the hospital of University of Nanjing] for a matter of some six or seven weeks following the fall of the city on December 13, 1937. Just better. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (then spelled Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second SinoJapanese War. [73], According to Canadian scholar David Bruce MacDonald, the higher range of estimates of over 100,000 victims are more likely to be accurate,[74] whereas by contrast the Irish historian LM Cullen argues that the lower range of estimates, which put the death toll in tens of thousands, "are probably the most credible. [94], According to the verdict of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal on 10 March 1947, there are "more than 190,000 mass slaughtered civilians and Chinese soldiers killed by machine gun by the Japanese army, whose corpses have been burned to destroy proof. [34], In reference to the greatly divergent ways in which various scholars have delineated the massacre, Askew has affirmed that the debate on the death toll "is meaningless if two completely different definitions are being used". [20], The Nanjing garrison force set fire to buildings and houses in the areas close to Xiakuan to the north as well as in the environs of the eastern and southern city gates. A lesser debate rests on who among the dead to be included as "massacre victims". Citation "Nanjing Death Toll Graph," Atlas of the Dead, accessed January 17, . The Japanese Army had pushed quickly through China after capturing Shanghai in November 1937. [184] This report formed part of a 55-volume series about the massacre, the Collection of Historical Materials of Nanjing Massacre (). [21], The second type of source is the burial records written down by Chinese charitable associations. Tokyo Nichi Nichi, 13 December 1937 article on the killing contest. [29][31], The third type of source is Japanese military records, which recorded the number of POWs the Japanese Army executed. [38][39], In his final analysis, Tokushi Kasahara looks at documents and diaries recorded by soldiers of the Japanese Army and concludes that at least 80,000 Chinese soldiers and POWs, or possibly over 100,000, were massacred by the Japanese, which was most of the estimated total force of 150,000 soldiers. [98] Tomio Hora supports the information found in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which estimates a death toll of at least 200,000. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (then spelled Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass . [85] Approximately 70 percent of the Japanese army's wartime records were destroyed. They do not mention sexual assaults. [T]here is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. Hiroshi Yoshida concludes "more than 200,000" in his book. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at Ginling Collegealone. Official war journals and diaries were also published by Kaikosha, an organization of retired Japanese military veterans. On 17 December, chairman John Rabe wrote a complaint to Kiyoshi Fukui, second secretary of the Japanese Embassy. He would later state that he had seen tank guns used on bound soldiers. [171][172], According to a brief reference to Nanjing at the Yasukuni museum in Tokyo, the Japanese general in charge gave his men maps showing foreign settlements and a civilian "safety zone", and ordered them to maintain strict military discipline. the court found that at least 200,000 had perished during the Rape of Nanking. The number of Chinese killed in the massacre has been . The judges were also prepared to accept that the death toll would be much higher if estimates of the number of Chinese burned alive by the Japanese in mass slaughter pits and bodies dumped in the river were added. However, they feared that speaking out openly "would be detrimental to their careers. "Nakamura Akira shi no 'Nanking Jiken Ichiman Nin Gyakusatsu Setsu' wo Hihan Suru [Critique of 'The Death Toll of Ten Thousand in the Nanjing Incident' by Mr. Akira Nakamura]." Seiron . . [1] Today most Japanese historians of the so-called "great massacre" school have reduced their death toll estimates somewhat and now advocate the figure of "100,000 plus" in contrast with the old consensus of 200,000. Japan Advertiser, 7 December 1937 (an American-owned and edited English-language daily paper in Tokyo), harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKingston2008 (. [90], Numerous factors complicate the estimation of an accurate death toll.[91][92]. Chinese teacher sacked for questioning death toll in Nanjing massacre. There are no official numbers for the death toll . [5] Instead they threw away their uniforms and weapons and hid among the city's civilian population. Friday December 17 2021, 10.25am, The Times. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. People from mainland China saw themselves as the victims. Another piece of evidence that was submitted to the tribunal was Harold Timperley's telegram regarding the Nanjing Massacre which had been intercepted and decoded by the Americans on January 17, 1938. [18] However, in a 1942 speech Chiang Kai-shek raised that figure to "over 200,000 civilians". What followed was nothing short of chaos. Women and girls were raped en masse and looting was widespread. . Iwanami Shinsho, Fujiwara Akira (editor). The situation was different in Japan. It was worse. [7] At the same time soldiers of the Japanese Army also committed random acts of murder against civilians, and engaged in rape, arson, and looting. Durdin stated "[i]t should be said that certain Japanese units exercised restraint and that certain Japanese officers tempered power with generosity and commission," but continued "the conduct of the Japanese army as a whole in Nanjing was a blot on the reputation of their country". That's how they get their nationalism and pride, that Japan never made any mistake to other countries during the WW, instead, they're a victim of the US, they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. [12][63][64] Bob Wakabayashi concludes from this that estimates over 200,000 are not credible. . "[120], Matsui asserted that he had never ordered the execution of Chinese POWs. In a diary entry from Minnie Vautrin on December 15, 1937, she wrote about her experiences in the Safety Zone: The Japanese have looted widely yesterday and today, have destroyed schools, have killed citizens, and raped women. The majority of the bodies were dumped directly into the Yangtze River. In his diary kept during the aggression against the city and its occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Safety Zone, John Rabe, wrote many comments about Japanese atrocities. Nanjing had been constantly bombed for days and the Chinese troops that remained there were disheartened and had taken to drinking before the city's inevitable fall. But we always stabbed and killed them. Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing China and Japan: Seven decades of bitterness [1] Ikuhiko Hata considers the number of 300,000 to be a "symbolic figure" representative of China's wartime suffering and not a figure to be taken literally. David Askew, "The Scale of Japanese Atrocities in Nanjing: An Examination of the Burial Records," Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, June 2004, 710. More conservative estimates say that the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. The two men were described as vying to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword before the capture of Nanjing. The American ambassador in Hankow replied that although he supported Rabe's proposal for a ceasefire, Chiang did not. Bergamini, David, "Japan's Imperial Conspiracy," William Morrow, New York; 1971. place the death toll on a much wider scale from 40,000 to 300,000. [88], In early 1980s, after interviewing Chinese survivors and reviewing Japanese records, Japanese journalist Honda Katsuichi claimed that the Nanjing Massacre was not an isolated case, and that Japanese atrocities against the Chinese were common throughout the Lower Yangtze River since the battle of Shanghai. After a while we would say something like, "It's my day to take a bath," and we took turns raping them. Iris Chang, author of the Rape of Nanjing (book), wrote one of the most comprehensive accounts of Japanese war atrocities in China. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1-year-old baby. The museum notes only that "Chinese soldiers disguised in civilian clothes, which numbered around 4000[34] were severely prosecuted". The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. In August 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai, where they met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties. Nanjing Death Toll Graph. [26][27] However, emotional arguments and political interference in the debate have tended to hinder the construction of an academic consensus on the number of people killed in the atrocity. According to one Japanese journalist embedded with Imperial forces at the time:[12]. [135], Mei Xiao-ao, the son of Mei Ju-ao, a Chinese justice who was present at the Tokyo war crime tribunal, published an essay claiming that in the early 1960s, Mei's father, inspired by the recent publication of a Japanese study on the destruction caused by the atomic bombs, tried calling for greater study of the massacre by Chinese historians of the time, but his ideas received a cold reception; he was reportedly accused of "stirring up national hatred and revenge" against the Japanese, and some others felt that writing about "the Chinese defeat and misery in Nanjing amounted to hidden praise for the strength of the Japanese troops. [21] When Yoshiaki Itakura, an independent writer who became one of the leading researchers of the Nanking Incident,[21][32] analyzed the records of the Japanese Army, he multiplied his final tally by 0.6 in order to account for exaggeration and reached the total of 13,000 to 19,000 massacre victims. This article is part of . The Japanese army mounted its assault on the Nanjing walls from multiple directions; the SEF's 16th Division attacked three gates on the eastern side, the 6th Division of the 10A launched its offensive on the western walls, and the SEF's 9th Division advanced into the area in-between. The number 300,000 is displayed prominently at memorials and is the higher end of commonly accepted estimates. [19] The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers. [21][66] Within China scholars focus on defending the official figures and in the past the government has imposed censorship on historians who have suggested alternative numbers. In China today most estimates of the Nanking Massacre range from 200,000 to 400,000, with no notable historian going below 100,000. : Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing,", Akira Fujiwara, "The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview," in, David Askew, "The Scale of Japanese Atrocities in Nanjing: An Examination of the Burial Records,", Joshua A. Fogel, "The Nanking Atrocity and Chinese Historical Memory," in, Kaz Ross, "Remembering Nanjing: Patriotism and/or peace in architecture," in, Lloyd Eastman, "Nationalist China during the Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945," in, Barry Schwartz, "Rethinking Conflict and Collective Memory: The Case of Nanking," in, Takashi Yoshida, "Refighting the Nanking Massacre: The Continuing Struggle over Memory," in, International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, International Military Tribunal of the Far East, "The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends", "The Nanking Atrocities in the 1990s: The Controversy in Japan", "The Nanking Atrocities in the 1990s: The Death Toll - Current Estimates", "Japanese Crimes in Nanjing, 1937-38: A Reappraisal", "Nanjing Massacre certitude: Toll will elude", "400,000 People Killed in Nanjing Massacre: Expert", Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, Rape during the Soviet occupation of Poland, Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office, Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, German preWorld War II industrial co-operation, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_toll_of_the_Nanjing_Massacre&oldid=1121556661, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Government of the People's Republic of China, includes all Chinese killed including those killed in action, the city of Nanking, its immediate outskirts, and all six surrounding counties between early December 1937 and late January 1938, includes all disarmed POWs; includes soldiers killed on the battlefield but not immediately capable of fighting back, the city of Nanking, its immediate outskirts, and all six surrounding counties between December 4, 1937, and March 28, 1938, the city of Nanking, its immediate outskirts, and all six surrounding counties between December 1, 1937, and March 1938, the entire area from Shanghai to Nanking between November 1937 to late January 1938, includes all disarmed POWs; does not include any soldiers killed on the battlefield, the city of Nanking and its immediate outskirts between December 13, 1937, and early February 1938, only includes disarmed POWs buried by the Red Cross, and civilians whose deaths they verified; does not include any soldiers killed on the battlefield, the city of Nanking and its immediate outskirts between December 13, 1937, and late January 1938, the city of Nanking and its immediate outskirts between December 13, 1937, and early January 1938, does not include approximately 4,000 Chinese soldiers captured out of uniform and executed; does not include any soldiers killed on the battlefield, This page was last edited on 12 November 2022, at 22:54. 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