[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. If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot. It referred to the Nanjing massacre as an "incident", and glossed over the issue of comfort women. [7] By mid-November, the Japanese had captured Shanghai with the help of naval and aerial bombardment. 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. Then the soldier stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and tossed it aside. Kasahara notes that Smythe's survey proves that a bare minimum of 12,000 ordinary civilians were massacred within Nanking, though other contemporary sources gives figures between 50,000 and 100,000, plus at least another 26,870 outside Nanking. [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. However, Askew notes that Japanese units often exaggerated their body counts. Tang gathered about 100,000 soldiers, largely untrained, including Chinese troops who had participated in the Battle of Shanghai. 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. [70], By the year 2000 very little research had been done by Western scholars concerning the death toll of the Nanking Massacre, and instead most Western sources simply repeated the early death toll estimates, including those proposed in the 1930s and 1940s by the International Military Tribunal of the Far East, which put the toll at 100,000 or more, and by Miner Searle Bates, who said roughly 40,000. [86], Ono Kenji, a chemical worker in Japan, curated a collection of wartime diaries from Japanese veterans who fought in the Battle of Nanking in 1937. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking, then the capital of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 - 1945). A year before that a series of "smaller courts" held in China, including in Nanjing, put the death toll at 300,000. The second telegram was sent through Shanghai to Japanese military leaders, advocating for a three-day ceasefire so that the Chinese could withdraw from the city. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass rape and murder committed by the Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking, then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Instead of punishing the Japanese troops who were responsible for wholesale rape, "'The Japanese expeditionary Force in Central China issued an order to set up comfort houses during this period of time,' Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a prominent history professor at Chuo University, observes, 'because Japan was afraid of criticism from China, the United States of America and Europe following the case of massive rapes between battles in Shanghai and Nanjing. 616621. [citation needed], The remembrance of the massacre has evolved drastically in China. From this gunboat, Rabe sent two telegrams. [44] The women were often killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit mutilation,[45] such as by penetrating vaginas with bayonets, long sticks of bamboo, or other objects. Nankin Daigyakusatsu (Nanjing Massacre), "Six weeks long" is a convenient figure but far from precise. Title. [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. The Nanjing Massacre (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Nnjng Dtsh, Japanese: , romanized: Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as Nanking) was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino . He agrees with Hata that Chinese soldiers actively engaged in combat were not massacre victims, but he also includes in his definition of the massacre any Chinese soldiers who were killed on the battlefield but not actively resisting, noting that many confrontations between the Chinese and Japanese Armies were more like one-sided slaughters than battles. [112][170] The range of the death toll estimated by Japanese historians is from tens of thousands to 200,000. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Hs Shuhsi, ed. The Flowers of War by Geling Yan, translated by Nicky Harman. Asaka denied the existence of any massacre and claimed never to have received complaints about the conduct of his troops.[119]. Dublin Core. Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 112. According to Navy veteran Sho Mitani, "The Army used a trumpet sound that meant 'Kill all Chinese who run away'. ", Harold Timperley, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion, reported that at least 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed in Nanjing and elsewhere, and tried to send a telegram but was censored by the Japanese military in Shanghai. Robert Sabella, Fei Fei Li and David Liu, eds. On December 13, 2009, both the Chinese and Japanese monks held a religious assembly to mourn Chinese civilians killed by invading Japanese troops. The results of the survey were published in the association's magazine, Kaiko, in 1985 along with an admission and apology that read, "Whatever the severity of war or special circumstances of war psychology, we just lose words faced with this mass illegal killing. The prosecution began the Nanjing phase of its case in July 1946. 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" in Nanjing. The death toll, and indeed the events in Nanjing in general, are subject to much discussion, with death toll estimates ranging from 30,000 to 300,000. [3][94][92][95] However, the most credible scholars in Japan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 cases of rape. New York Times (New York), January 9, 1938; accessed March 12, 2016. [36], From December 13, 1937, the Japanese Army engaged in random murder, wartime rape, looting, arson, and other war crimes. Just better. I shouldn't say all right. [13], Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers as reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English-language Japan Advertiser. This 300,000 number is constantly hammered to us, being on gigantic signs on events related to remembering the massacre, and a must-mention whenever a textbook/TV program mentions the massacre. 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". Men, women and children were killed in uncounted numbers throughout the city. Higashinakano had claimed in his book, Thorough Review of Nanjing Massacre, that she and the girl were different persons, and that she was not a witness of the Nanjing massacre, but he was unable to prove this at trial. "[53], Apart from geographical scope, some historians including Kasahara deny that the massacre ended in early February and instead put the end date at March 28, though such a long time range is disputed by other historians. [133], Associate Professor David Askew of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University said that in Japan, a unified Japanese view of the massacre doesn't exist because of the internal debates and contentions surrounding the massacre, and that the different views can be categorized into mutually exclusive groups. "[91], Chinese soldiers and POWs as massacre victims, F. Tillman Durdin, "Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking,", David Askew, "Part of the Numbers Issue: Demography and Civilian Victims," in, Ikuhiko Hata, "The Nanking Atrocities: Fact and Fable,", Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, "The Messiness of Historical Reality," in, Daqing Yang, "A Sino-Japanese Controversy: The Nanjing Atrocity As History,", Tokushi Kasahara, "," in, Tokushi Kasahara, "Massacres outside Nanking City," in, David Askew, "The Nanjing Incident: An Examination of the Civilian Population,", David Askew, "Defending Nanking: An Examination of the Capital Garrison Forces,", Daqing Yang, "Convergence or Divergence? Women and girls were raped en masse and looting was widespread. ", "Case 15 There are about 540 refugees crowded in No. Yoshida contended that over time the event has acquired different meanings to different people. [34], With the relocation of the capital of China and the reports of Japanese brutality, most of the civilian population fled Nanjing out of fear. Chinese teacher sacked for questioning death toll in Nanjing massacre. 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 . [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". Destruction of Nanking. They believed the 300,000 toll typified a "Chinese-style exaggeration" with disregard for evidence. This definition was supported by Hora and other early scholars. All of them were hanged on 23 December 1948. [21] Historians Haruo Tohmatsu and HP Willmott think that Japanese scholars generally consider the estimate of roughly 40,000 massacre victims to be "the most academically reliable estimate". 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]. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. [31] His more specific range of figures is roughly 160,000 to 170,000. [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 following day, on December 10, Rabe got his answer from the Generalissimo. [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. Nanking Massacre death toll. I am born in China. 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. [177] Indeed, there is only one sentence that refers to this event: "they [the Japanese troops] occupied that city in December. She said that the people of China "don't believe that an unequivocal and sincere apology has ever been made by Japan to China" and that a written apology from Japan would send a better message to the international community. The four horsemen of denial. 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]. In a documentary film about the Nanjing Massacre, In the Name of the Emperor, a former Japanese soldier named Shiro Azuma spoke candidly about the process of rape and murder in Nanjing.[50]. [2] In reviewing this survey, Askew concluded that all of its "centrists" were effectively deniers of the atrocity except for Hara. [41], Since then Kasahara has proposed a definition between these two. [citation needed], The entry for the same day in Matsui's diary read, "I could only feel sadness and responsibility today, which has been overwhelmingly piercing my heart. As Nanking fell to the Japanese, and their troops entered the city on the 13th of December, the streets were already crowded with a large number of . I offer my sympathy, with deep emotion, to a million innocent people. The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. This created panic in the area and hundreds of women moved into the Ginling College campus yesterday. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. [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. Death toll of the Nanjing Massacre Last updated May 04, 2022. [52] Kasahara believes that including massacre victims from the surrounding rural parts of Nanking adds 30,000 victims onto the death toll. [citation needed], The government of Japan believes it can not be denied that the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other acts by the Japanese army occurred. 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