Japanese Atrocities inanking: 70-Year Quest for Justice Persists
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Japanese Atrocities inanking: 70-Year Quest for Justice Persists
- The Rape of Nanking in 1937-1938 resulted in an estimated 200,000 to 300000 Chinese civilian and soldier deaths over six weeks by invading Japanese forces.
- Iris Chang's 1997 book "The Rape of Nanking" revived global awareness of the massacre, though she received death threats including two bullets mailed to her home 1998.
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In December 1937, Japanese captured Nanking, then China’s capital, unleashing a six-week orgy of violence known as the Rape of Nanking. Soldiers systematically raped tens of thousands of women and girls—estimates range from 20,000 to 80,000—before killing many victims. Mass executions targeted disarmed soldiers and civilians, with bodies dumped into the Yangtze River or burned in piles. Eyewitness accounts from Western missionaries, journalists, and diplomats in the Nanjing Safety Zone documented machine-gun killings, bayoneting contests, and live burials.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicted several Japanese leaders post-World War II, but many perpetrators evaded full accountability amid postwar geopolitical shifts, including Japan’s alliance with the U.S. against communism. Official Japanese textbooks have often downplayed or omitted the atrocities, fueling decades of Sino-Japanese tension.
Iris Chang, a Chinese-American historian, brought the event to wide attention with her 1997 bestseller “The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II,” drawing on survivor testimonies and archives. Her work faced fierce denialism from Japanese nationalists; in 1998, she received a package containing two bullets at her California home—a stark intimidation tactic. Chang died by suicide in 2004 at age 36, amid mental health struggles exacerbated by harassment.
Now, 70 years after the massacre—marked around 2007-2008—her mother, Ying-Ying Chang, has continued the advocacy. The family pushes for formal Japanese apologies, reparations, and inclusion in education. Annual commemorations in China, including at the Memorial Hall in Nanjing, keep the memory alive, while international scholars and survivors’ groups sustain pressure for recognition. Despite partial acknowledgments, like Emperor Akihito’s 1990 expression of “deep remorse,” full justice remains elusive amid ongoing historical disputes.
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