Historical revisionists and nationalists in Japan have been accused of minimizing or denying the massacre. Death toll of the Nanjing Massacre Last updated May 04, 2022. : 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. It would be all right if we only raped them. 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. However, Askew notes that Japanese units often exaggerated their body counts. Chinese teacher sacked for questioning death toll in Nanjing massacre. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanjing. Even with such a huge death toll, some even deny the existence of this massacre. Languages. Their stories and those of the German residents tell of the city having fallen into the hands of the Japanese as captured prey, not merely taken in the course of organized warfare but seized by an invading army whose members seemed to have set upon the prize to commit unlimited depredations and violence. An official from South Korea said they would summon the Tokyo ambassador to protest. . After decades of struggle, the Nanking Massacre had become a recognized piece of Japanese history. Due to multiple factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases. [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. The subject is the notorious Japanese occupation of Nanjing, China, in 1937. Yet, in China, this figure has come to symbolize the justice, legality, and authority of the post-war trials condemning Japan as the aggressor.[113]. In the latter process we are glad to cooperate in any way we can. He alleged it would have been impossible to kill so many people in such a short period of time. [67], Soon after the fall of the city, Japanese troops made a thorough search for Chinese soldiers and summarily arrested thousands of young Chinese men. The final type of source mentioned by David Askew is data sampling, and though only one such survey of this variety was conducted, Lewis S.C. Smythe's "War Damage in the Nanking Area", it is an essential document for estimating civilian casualties of the atrocity. 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. [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. [147], On June 19, 2007, a group of around 100 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lawmakers again denounced the Nanjing Massacre as a fabrication, arguing that there was no evidence to prove the allegations of mass killings by Japanese soldiers. Two days later he defended his remarks, saying, "Even since I was a national Diet representative, I have said [repeatedly] there was no [Nanjing] massacre that resulted in murders of several hundred thousands of people. 5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanjing and demanded entrance. This novel has been translated into Chinese and Russian. Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanjing, criticized Murayama for not providing the written apology that had been expected. The website has quoted a Japanese Twitter user who apparently said, "why the death toll increases every year". Updated on March 06, 2017. [18][23] However, the prosecution at these trials made little effort to verify the accuracy of their death toll estimates and a considerable amount of dubious and now discredited data was accepted by both tribunals. These estimates are borne out by the figures of burial societies and other organizations, which testify to over 155,000 buried bodies. 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 . Although the massacre is generally described as having occurred over a six-week period after the fall of Nanjing, the crimes committed by the Japanese army were not limited to that period. In regard to the number of victims of this Nanjing Massacre the Tokyo (War Crime) Trials later found it in excess of 200,000, and prosecuted Japan's responsibility severely", reads one Japanese textbook. [18] The judge also ruled against the civil claim of the plaintiffs because the original article was more than 60 years old. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. In 1986 Ikuhiko Hata became the first historian to call this definition into question. [153], On February 3, 2014, Naoki Hyakuta, a member of the board of governors of Japan's public broadcasting company, NHK, was quoted as saying the massacre never occurred. "Hundred believed Dead - Panay Death . From Jurong to Tangshan (two cities in Jiangshu Province, China), Mukai had killed 89 people while Noda had killed 78. [21] Noting that different definitions produce vastly different estimates, he believes that even the significant disagreements between the historians Tokushi Kasahara and Ikuhiko Hata would disappear if they had been using the same definitions. Hempel's hotel was broken into as well, as [was] almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road.[61]. But even last night between 8 and 9 p.m. when five Occidental members of our staff and Committee toured the Zone to observe conditions, we did not find any single Japanese patrol either in the Zone or at the entrances! Prince Kan'in Kotohito, chief of staff of the Imperial Japanese Army during the massacre, had died before the end of the war in May 1945. The contesta race between the two officers to see who could kill 100 people first using only a swordwas covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days. "Convergence or Divergence? One of the books by Hs, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, was also adduced in court. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. [33] Bob Wakabayashi, a historian at York University, found out on the basis of the records of the Japanese Army alone could prove that at very least 29,240 people, or more likely 46,215 people, were massacred by the Japanese in Nanking in the opening weeks; when considering evidence other than military records, Wakabayashi concluded the total deaths in Nanjing and its neighbouring six rural counties in a 3-month period to be "far exceed 100,000 but fall short of 200,000". [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. [136] According to him, "of the two, however, the Great Massacre School is clearly the more sophisticated, counting among its members a large number of academics who bring a great deal of authority to their findings. Rabe says that the ambassador also "sent us a separate confidential telegram telling us that he has been officially informed by the Foreign Ministry in Hankow that our understanding that General Tang agreed to a three-day armistice and the withdrawal of his troops from Nanjing is mistaken, and moreover that Chiang Kai-shek has announced that he is not in a position to accept such an offer." Currently, the most reliable and widely agreed upon figures place the total death toll of the massacre between the broad range of 40,000 to 200,000 massacre victims in the entire Nanking Special Administrative District. [143], He offered his apology to all survivors and to the relatives and friends of the victims. Fuller data and our own observations have not brought out facts to discredit their information. The second one is right - the Rape of Nanking wasn't as bad as people say. ", "Case 16 A Chinese girl named Loh, who, with her mother and brother, was living in one of the Refugee Centers in the Refugee Zone, was shot through the head and killed by a Japanese soldier. See: Death toll of the Nanking Massacre. Since the late-1960s when the first academic works on the Nanking Massacre were produced, estimating the approximate death toll of the massacre has been a major topic of scholarly debate. [56] By this definition the "Nanking Massacre" can symbolically be said to have lasted from 1931 to 1945, extended over the whole of China, and included ten million victims. [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". [75], Rabe wrote that, from time to time, the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them. Instead, they wore trousers tied with a string. [49] Though many still support the IMTFE's geographic scope for the massacre, in 1984 the journalist Katsuichi Honda became the first individual to voice disapproval of this definition. I think he will live. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. Yoshida has argued that the Nanjing Massacre has figured in the attempts of all three nations as they work to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and mother. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers. [note 1] The massacre was one of the worst atrocities committed during World War II.[6]. However, they feared that speaking out openly "would be detrimental to their careers. Shortly after the surrender of Japan, the primary officers in charge of the Japanese troops at Nanjing were put on trial. General Iwane Matsui waited another hour before issuing the command to take Nanjing by force. Few numbers have caused such scholarly debate as the death toll estimates of the Nanking Massacre. "[133] A study into the massacre was undertaken by a group of historians in the early 1960s, but supposedly due to political reasons it was restricted to the form of an "internal publication" in 1979. [107] However, Erwin Wickert, the editor of The diaries of John Rabe, points out that "It is likely that Rabe's estimate is too low, since he could not have had an overview of the entire municipal area during the period of the worst atrocities. [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. [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. "[137], The debate concerning the massacre took place mainly in the 1970s, according to Higashinakano Shudo. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and they shot her. At trial, Matsui went out of his way to protect Prince Asaka by shifting blame to lower-ranking division commanders. [164][165][166], Yoshida asserts that "Nanjing has figured in the attempts of all three nations [China, Japan and the United States] to preserve and redefine national and ethnic pride and identity, assuming different kinds of significance based on each country's changing internal and external enemies."[167]. The situation was different in Japan. ", "Japanese Crimes in Nanjing, 193738: A Reappraisal", "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", Japan's Last Vets of Nanking Massacre Open Up, "The Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanking Massacre: Rhetoric in the Face of Tragedy", "The Chinese Islamic "Goodwill Mission to the Middle East" During the Anti-Japanese War", "John Rabe's letter to Hitler, from Rabe's diary", "Denial of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking", "The Rape of Nanking vs. the incident of Nanking: a Literature Review", "The Nanjing Incident: Recent Research and Trends", Paragraph 2, p. 1012, Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East, "Convergence or Divergence? Following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese Imperial Army marched from Shanghai to the Chinese capital city of Nanking, and though a large number of Chinese POWs and civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese following their entrance into Nanking on . The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. 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. and Japanese historian Fujiwara Akira put the final toll closer to 200,000. . There are no official numbers for the death toll in the Nanking Massacre, though estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 people. Just better. . In the meantime, members of the Committee contacted Tang and proposed a plan for three-day cease-fire, during which the Chinese troops could withdraw without fighting while the Japanese troops would stay in their present position. [21], However, when Shokun! Some right-wing Japanese politicians have downplayed the death toll or denied outright that the Nanking atrocity happened. Added in 24 Hours. [68], In 2006, Kaz Ross, a historian with the University of Tasmania, anonymously interviewed a number of university researchers in the city of Nanking to learn their private views on the death toll of the Nanking Massacre. [58], The official stance of the People's Republic of China is that 300,000 or more Chinese were massacred in Nanking. We thus have a total of more than 300,000 victims. However, according to historian Tokushi Kasahara, the evidence used to convict Hisao Tani was not convincing. Such crime continued from three to six weeks depending on the types of crime. "Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking After Chinese Command Fled." [76], By February 5, 1938, the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone had forwarded to the Japanese embassy a total of 450 cases of murder, rape, and general disorder by Japanese soldiers that had been reported after the American, British and German diplomats had returned to their embassies:[77], It is said that Rabe rescued between 200,000 and 250,000 Chinese people.[78][79]. [145][146], In May 1994, Justice Minister Shigeto Nagano called the Nanjing Massacre a "fabrication". "[120], Matsui asserted that he had never ordered the execution of Chinese POWs. Many atrocities were reported to have been committed as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanjing. [112], The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Japanese entered the area, the longer the duration. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet. People are hysterical Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. Until 1982, mentioning of the massacre was suppressed in China because ideologically the communists would rather promote the "martyrs of class struggles" than wartime victims, especially when there were no communist heroes or any communists at all in Nanjing when the massacre happened. [27], On December 5, Asaka left Tokyo by plane and arrived at the front three days later. The death sentence imposed on Hirota, a six-to-five decision by the eleven judges, shocked the general public and prompted a petition on his behalf, which soon gathered over 300,000 signatures but did not succeed in commuting the Minister's sentence. [1] Hence, depending on the timeframe and the geographic scope, an empirically verifiable, scholarly valid victimization range is from over 40,000 to under 200,000.[1]. Friday December 17 2021, 10.25am, The Times. [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. [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. Fifteen of the remaining 22 foreigners formed a committee, called the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone in the western quarter of the city. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned to death. In 2006 former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made a pilgrimage to the shrine despite warnings from China and South Korea. On 19 December 1937, the Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:[46]. "[97] With the emergence of more information and data, he said that there is a possibility that the death toll could be higher. ", Organized and wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent sanction of the commanders on the pretext that Chinese soldiers had removed their uniforms and were mingling with the population. It remains, however, the Japanese soldiers swarmed over the city in thousands and committed untold depredations and atrocities. Many remember the atrocities that occurred to the Jews in the Holocaust, but few remember what is called, "The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II," where 300,000 people were murdered, and 20,000 women were raped (Rivera 2). After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. Asaka denied the existence of any massacre and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops.[119]. [125][126], Moritake Tanabe, the Chief of Staff of the Japanese 10th Army at the time of the massacre, was tried for unrelated for war crimes in the Dutch East Indies. The survivors were killed with bayonets.[69]. For most of the morning, Japanese soldiers tied the POWs' hands together. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass . 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. The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. 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. [159][160], The Massacre is sometimes compared to other disasters in China, which include the Great Chinese famine (195961)[161][162][163] and the Cultural Revolution. Durdin, F. Tillman. Robert Sabella, Fei Fei Li and David Liu, eds. [105], John Rabe, Chairman of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, estimated that between 50,000 and 60,000 (civilians) were killed. Anger over the events at Nanking . Estimates of the number of victims vary based on the definitions of the geographical range and the duration of the event. "[65] Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. Japanese troops pursued the retreating Chinese army units, primarily in the Xiakuan area to the north of the city walls and around the Zijin Mountain in the east. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. THE NANKING MASSACRE - Page 4: Defining the victims. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by 23 men and the younger by 3. Title. The Nanking Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanki. The civilian government of Nanjing fled, leaving the city under the de facto control of German citizen John Rabe, who had founded the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. [12][63][64] Bob Wakabayashi concludes from this that estimates over 200,000 are not credible. ", "Case 10 On the night of December 15th, a number of Japanese soldiers entered the University of Nanjing buildings at Tao Yuen and raped 30 women on the spot, some by six men. "[85] Overseas troops in the Pacific and East Asia were ordered to destroy incriminating evidence of war crimes. In 1948, the case of the Nanjing massacre was considered by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which handed down two death sentences. The Chinese scholars of the committee maintained that at least 300,000 were killed. 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. [56], According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanjing and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. The slaughter of civilians is appalling. [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. [6] Over the course of its subsequent occupation of Nanking the Japanese Army hunted down the former Chinese soldiers within the city and in a large number of cases summarily executed them.

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