Nanking Massacre: Part 2 - Atrocities

This blog won't be an easy one to write. I've covered some pretty dark stuff, that's for certain, but nothing quite like this before. It poses some unique problems. This entire segment will be about a horrific massacre of an innocent, peaceful city. I've been able to joke around about some truly awful things, but a mass murder that rightfully draws comparisons to the Holocaust isn't something that should be approached facetiously. Worse yet, the degree in which many people still decline to acknowledge what happened in Nanking makes the issue still current, so while saying "too soon" might be off, there have been recent events that have reopened the wound. So, to my avid readers (realistically just my father) this one won't be as fun loving, save for my photo captions - I can't break my mould. In the same breath, I won't go too into detail as many of the stories are too awful for the intents and purposes of this blog. I'll also keep the pictures P.G., but remember - if you search for more information on this independently, brace yourself, because there are things you will not want to see.

Prince Asaka, presumably
before releasing
"When Doves Cry."

Anyways.

The Chinese city of Nanking surrenders to the Japanese in the late months of 1937. The general at the time, Iwane Matsui, wished to take the city but to leave it virtually untouched. He demanded violence only be subjected to those that rebelled against the takeover, and that looting be off-limits. Those that broke those rules would be punished for their actions. This seemed all well and good until Matsui came down with tuberculosis, placing a member of the Imperial royal family in charge - one Prince Asaka Yasuhiko. (Note: it may be Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, and it seems to be written multiple ways due to Japanese naming conventions I do not understand; the same goes for Matsui. From this point on I will refer to them as Matsui and Asaka, as that seems to be most common.) Asaka saw the situation differently; taking that many prisoners (many of them soldiers) would mean feeding and keeping watch over them, which would be an economic strain to the army. Because of this, and with the running feeling of contempt towards the Chinese population, he then put out the order to kill all the captives. It's a matter of some debate whether he directly sent out that order or not, but it did come from a higher up with his seal. Regardless of whether or not the order came from his hand, he certainly did nothing to stop it.

From here, one of the worst, most savage massacres of a large population in history occurred at the hands of the Japanese army. The remaining soldiers, of which there were likely about 90,000 or so, were systematically taken aside and executed. Men were killed in droves in this manner, taken away in groups to limit the chance of an uprising. Many thought they were simply being transported elsewhere until they would see the piles of corpses to which they were being led.

The citizens fared no better. Civilians were killed in the streets and tossed into the adjacent river. Women, children, the elderly - no single person was off limits, and would be killed where they stood. The soldiers would move from house to house, eliminating entire families of Chinese.

The article about the "sword competition". It's like they
knew what Hitler was going to do and tried to match
him on the villany scale.

The women fared the worst; they would be raped regardless of age, sometimes being passed around to up to twenty men. Crimes of that nature would occur openly, and while it was technically against the orders that were sent down, it was shockingly common. It became such an issue that they set up a system of "comfort women" houses, essentially a government sanctioned ring of prostitution, to slow the number of rapes that were occurring. It would be decades before anyone would speak up about this because of the shame that would be wrought on the individual women that had survived the ordeal; Chinese culture placed a strong emphasis on the purity of women, and admitting they were defiled in this manner would be a terrible ordeal in and of itself. The Japanese government would deny that the prostitution ring existed, but documents addressing it from high-ranking officials confirmed its presence.

However, it wasn't only the women that would find hardships. Death from execution is far from the worst that could happen; many of the citizens had to endure much worse. Many were buried alive, mutilated for sport, burned to death, frozen in the river, or ripped apart by dogs. Famously, an article details a competition between two men over who could kill one hundred prisoners with a sword first. While many of the details are simply too grisly to discuss here, I'll leave you with this: one confession from a Japanese soldier is as follows. I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart.

"Few know that soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive in pots of boiling water. They gang-raped women from the ages of twelve to eighty and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burned them, and buried them alive, over two hundred in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil."

The death toll skyrocketed in the first six weeks, the most brutal of the killings. The numbers fluctuate, but the best estimates factoring everything in come to around 250,000-400,000 people killed in the city of Nanking alone. Bear in mind that the population of the city was roughly 500,000-600,000 by the time the citizens that had the fortune of getting away had left and by the time the Japanese arrived. These deaths weren't from area bombings or other methods of indiscriminate killing - these were individual and personal, one person killing another. The city itself lay in ruins as well, with $836,000,000 in public property damage and another $136,000,000 in private property. 

John Rabe: One of two Nazis history is
OK with. The other is the guy from
Schindler's List.

What prevented the total destruction of the city of Nanking was a small group of foreigners that were residing in Nanking. A little over two dozen from Europe and America, they set up a safe zone that were off-limits to the Japanese soldiers. They were led by the most unlikely of heroes; John Rabe, a high ranking Nazi. Every last one of them worked tirelessly, bringing members into the safe zone and sending away Japanese that did not respect the boundaries. They did not have weapons, but would scare them off by their status or through physically grabbing soldiers and sending them away. Attacking these individuals would have led to an international incident, so they managed to hold back the army until things began to settle. While the Japanese were not particularly intimidated by the Americans, they were frequently dissuaded by two Nazis (especially John Rabe) that would flash their Swastika badge at every opportunity. Fearful of allied Nazi reprisal, the Japanese held their distance. The zone accommodated 200-300,000 people, saving them from the tortures and brutality of the Japanese army. It's truly a story of incredible heroism, with such a massive number of lives saved by the efforts of so few. 

If this story has your blood boiling, well, I wish I could say it gets better. The response, from seemingly every party, including a number of Japanese officials, the Chinese government, and many others pours salt on the wound. That, however, will be saved for the final installment.