By far the most painful book I have ever read and yet a book that should be READ, passed on, READ, passed on, READ and passed on and ON so that new generations of people learn what those forever silent can't relate to their loved ones because they themselves have been Massacred

I came across this book having just finished [b:White Chrysanthemum|34701167|White Chrysanthemum|Mary Lynn Bracht|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494295249s/34701167.jpg|55879846] a historical fiction account of The Comfort Women and wanting to read more on this time in history I found this book.
The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape in 1937 that lasted for 6 weeks, committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. More than 300,000 chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, beheaded and murdered in the most unthinkable and horrific ways.
I have been vaguely aware of this terrible time in histroy but have never read anything about it and when I discussed this book with my work colleagues not one of them had heard of the Rape of Nanking or read or seen any documentaries related to this massacare which in itself is pretty shocking as this was a Holocaust which the world seems to have conveniently forgotten or swept under the carpet.

This is a DIFFICULT read as the descriptions of the atrocities are very very graphic but thankfully for me I only had to read about it and not endure it or witness it therefore the nightmares I experienced after reading passages in this book are nothing compared to what Chinese people still seeking justice must experience when they read a book like this and think how their ancestors met their fate.
An extremely well written and researced book and the author uses sources such as diaries, government documents, newspapers reports and interview with survivors.

Where there is evil there is sometimes amazing acts of bravery and heroism and this book really does highlight a few amazingly good people who saved thousands and I loved how the author researched and highlighted their stories and the good work they did among all the evil.
I was shocked, sickened, saddened and angry reading this book but above all I was EDUCATEDand I have already ordered two copies of this book for family members.
The Life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. Marcus Tullius Cicero

A WORD OF WARNING WHILE I THINK THIS IS A BOOK WHICH MANY SHOULD READ THERE ARE VERY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ATROCITIES AND SOME PEOPLE JUST MIGHT WANT TO BE AWARE OF THIS BEFORE READING.

The Chinese in American — Iris Chang

 

Chapter Twelve: Chinese American During the Great Depression

The Chinese in America — Iris Chang

 

Chang on the rise of Asian (more specifically Chinese in this case) fetishization in America. This issue has always been around since the Europeans first came in contact with Asians, but it has become increasingly worse because almost all men have done little to halt this fetishization.

 

To this day, men still exploit Asian women (and women in general) for their benefit/business. For instance, I was watching “What Asian Girls Like” (I know I shouldn't but I did anyway) by two brothers who make profit out of making Youtube video (some are decent) and advertising their or their friends' merchandise. Then in their comment section you may see various ways of saying how hot Asian girls are and all that bullshit. Ugh just horrible.

The "Rape of Nanking" refers to the astounding atrocities committed by invading Japanese soldiers during the first several weeks of their occupation of Nanking, then China's capital, slaughtering perhaps half the city's population. From 250 to 350 thousand non-combatants killed and 20 to 80 thousand women raped in a matter of six to eight weeks after Nanking fell in December of 1937. The book tells that story through the Japanese soldiers who witnessed and took part, the Chinese survivors, and about two dozen European and American residents who stayed and created a "safety zone" within the city harboring 300,000 people and which Chang credits with saving the other half of the city's population. It is, in other words, like many stories of World War II, a story of nearly unbelievable evil and incredible goodness. Of atrocity and heroism--and until recently selective amnesia as the Japanese chose to forget and countries wishing to foster good relationships with them from Communist China to the United States aided and abetted them. The Foreword notes that what "is still stunning is that it was a public rampage, evidently designed to terrorize. It was carried out in full view of international observers and largely irrespective of their efforts to stop it. And it was not a temporary lapse of military discipline, for it lasted seven weeks." The story Chang recounted was nothing less than horrific and thoroughly documented and made for disturbing reading--and viewing given the photographs included. There were killing competitions by Japanese soldiers, murder by burying alive, fire, ice, acid, dogs. One irony of Japan's refusal to come to terms with what happened is that many who took part can speak out about what they themselves did with impunity and no fear of prosecution. One former soldier related that they killed, raped and tortured without remorse--and were prepared for it not simply by a regime that dehumanized the Chinese but had long instilled self-sacrifice--the idea they didn't individually matter. He explained, "if my life was not important, an enemy's life became inevitably much less important." There are heroes in this--the "International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone"--ironically headed by the local Nazi Party head. John Rabe was "the Oskar Schindler of China," a German businessman who can be credited with saving hundreds of thousands. And who carefully documented the atrocities--an indictment with all the more credibility because it came from a German--a man whose nation was allied with Japan. Finally Chang deals with how so much of this history has been denied and erased from the education of the Japanese. A phenomenon I saw firsthand. A few years after this book was published I was in my last semester of college and enrolled in a program that placed students in DC internships and provided courses for credit. I took a course on modern Asia given by an American career diplomat. Also in the class was a Japanese national. We once asked him what he thought of what he was hearing, and he said he thought it very biased. One day our teacher told us he had dropped the course in protest--he had simply refused to believe what he was hearing about Japanese conduct during World War II could be anything but propaganda. She told us the Japanese simply are not taught about the shameful parts of their history. Or weren't. As of 1997 when The Rape of Nanking was published, Chang tells us the whole incident was airbrushed out of the textbooks, and the government of Japan had refused to provide reparations or offer an apology--very much in contrast to Germany and how it has dealt with its Nazi legacy. I don't know how much that might have changed over the last 15 years. But Chang certainly did history a service in writing this thorough--and at times moving--account of terrible events during World War II.

Beginning in 1937 and continuing until 1945, Japan controlled the capital city of Nationalist China, Nanking. They had already conquered Shanghai. This military effort was part of their ongoing design to conquer Asia. Their barbarism has largely remained unknown because of political efforts to silence the truth. Shining a light on the brutality of the Japanese during that era is essential if our intent is to prevent such a "Holocaust" from occurring again. As Chang quotes Santayana, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Today, we are witnesses to carnage in Somalia, and we have witnessed it in Rwanda and Bosnia, Syria and Korea, to name just a few trouble spots that the world has largely ignored, and stood by and watched, as these people murder each other.
The "collective amnesia" the author, Iris Chang, refers to could be a description of what is happening in our own country today, with the dissemination of only selective information, and of suspected "cover-ups" that keep unfolding (the riots in Benghazi, the IRS targeting individuals and groups, and intrusions into our private phone calls and emails by the government), which restricts transparency and limits the access of the public to information they need in order to fairly assess what is happening in the world around them and in order to prevent the power of the government and the control of the people, from getting out of hand. Nothing should prevent the truth from coming out, not politics, not corruption, not laws designed to hide information or the arrogance of leaders. Those that blow the whistle and inform are sometimes heroes, not traitors, because without the light they shine on subjects being veiled, little about the truth of certain policies and events would ever be exposed, and the picture painted for the public to see, would be of a world that truly does not exist.
This brave author has gone where others have not, where others who have tried have failed, been punished and even died in their efforts to expose or ask questions leading to the truth. She introduces the reader, clearly and succinctly, to the history of Japan's culture which created and is responsible for the brutal behavior of its people, the Samurai and Kamakazi attitude about honor and death, the adoration of an emperor with power and worth that supersedes that of G-d, the subservience of their own life to his which led to their belief that life is less valuable when it is sacrificed to the cause of the emperor and his government. To most of the Japanese, historically and during the wartime era, the subsuming of the individual to the common good, the dedication of the individual to the militaristic view of life and their belief in the superiority of themselves and of their country, including its right to march on and control Asia, with the West and the “whites” being the enemy, definitely effected their unrealistic world view, which was a warped and corrupt world view, that they almost succeeded in accomplishing, by surprising their victims with their aggression and barbarism, behavior unexpected from a culture that, on the face of things, worshiped respect and courtesy.
The brutality and barbarism of the Japanese soldiers defies belief and equals if not surpasses, the evil of the Nazis, according to Iris Chang, based on information she garnered after extensive and extraordinary research into the events of the Rape of Nanking. She tries to explain what makes people into such beasts, however, for me, it is unexplainable. How can such indifference to human suffering be borne by normal men and women? How could financial concerns and politics prevent action against such barbaric behavior? How could politics prevent the subject from ever being explored, how could it prevent Japan's admission of guilt and foster its consistent denial of the brutal treatment to hundreds of thousands of victims? How can the history of such sadistic, demonic behavior be hidden by anyone in power? Why isn’t the history of this event taught in schools? How could we get advanced degrees and never have learned about this monstrous episode? Why is such scandalous conduct ignored by the world and how can it go largely unpunished, even to this day? Why were no reparations paid? What could possibly possess any human being to be so depraved in their conduct to another?
A Safety Zone was set up in Nanking by some two dozen or so foreigners, in an attempt to save the victims of the Japanese barbarism. They were subject to brutality, as well, and many were accused of collaboration after the war ended, proving that no good deed goes unpunished. Three such people were John Rabe, Robert Wilson and Wilhelmina Vaquin.
Wilson was a surgeon in Nanking University Hospital who worked tirelessly to protect shelter and save the victims of the Japanese brutality. He suffered from seizures and nightmares throughout his life.
Rabe was the head of the International Committee in Nanking and head of the Safety Zone which he was very instrumental in creating. Chang refers to John Rabe, leader of the Nazi party in Nanking, as the “Oskar Schindler” of China. He was an unlikely hero. Contrary to the reprehensible behavior of the Nazi's during WWII, he was a source of help in China, imploring the German government to intercede and to halt the rampages of the soldiers, murdering, raping, stealing and destroying innocent people as they conquered Nanking. Inadvertently, I wondered, could his letters home have helped create the playbook for Hitler’s monstrous effort to achieve Aryan superiority and racial purity? It seemed to me, as I read, that the behavior of the Japanese government and military, foreshadowed events to come under the reign of Hitler in Germany.
According to his own remarks and writings, Rabe believed in the National Socialists, in so far as their concern for the cause of the worker, but not in so far as their hatred of other races, or their monstrous activities of torture and annihilation. Surely his documented exemplary behavior during the Rape of Nanking, goes a long way to prove that point.
Wilhelmina (Minnie) Vautrin was the acting head of Ginlin Women’s College. A missionary, she tried to prevent the rape, torture and arrest of the people who sought refuge on her campus. Her efforts and memories of the events so debilitated her, that she eventually suffered a nervous breakdown, and soon after she took her own life.
Sadly, the author also committed suicide. In her thirties, she was diagnosed with bi-polar disease and was plagued with thoughts about persecution. However, she was well when she penned the book and her exhaustive research and excellent writing style and skill portray the times with an honesty and openness that shine a light on the history with thoughts about why it happened and thoughts about how to prevent it from happening again, namely from holding the guilty parties responsible and never forgetting these “Holocaust” events and in so doing, learning from the history to make sure it never happens again. Her great sorrow was that, in Japan, reprisals are still made against those who speak honestly about The Rape of Nanking, and then they deny it or suppress existing information concerning the horrific event. It has become the best kept secret of the era and should become the most talked about if we are to learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes.
Reading the book is grueling, so horrific are the details for any human to digest. I will not relate them here, but I hope that many will be inspired to read this book and learn about them after they read my review. Some important questions to ask oneself after reading the book are: Why did Germany suffer repercussions and Japan largely escape major scrutiny and punishment? Why is the world still largely in the dark about this event? If we are not informed, will our ignorance and ostrich-like behavior eventually betray us again?