nanking massacre death toll

A lesser debate rests on who among the dead to be included as "massacre victims". Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008), p. 85. They were also tried by the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal. [71] In The Cambridge History of China, historian Lloyd Eastman asserted that the death toll was "at least 42,000",[72] whereas military officer Frank Dorn wrote in his book The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41 that the death toll was "over 200,000 civilians". I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people, but the Army must continue unless China repents. Only after firmly establishing 'historical particularities' can one clearly define Japans responsibility. The total death toll of the Nanking Massacre is a highly contentious subject in Chinese and Japanese historiography. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1949. [94], According to the verdict of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal on 10 March 1947, there are "more than 190,000 mass slaughtered civilians and Chinese soldiers killed by machine gun by the Japanese army, whose corpses have been burned to destroy proof. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. [13] Timperley included a second estimate in his book published later the same year, Japanese Terror In China, which quoted "a foreign member of the University faculty" as stating that "close to 40,000 unarmed persons were killed within and near the walls of Nanking". [177] Indeed, there is only one sentence that refers to this event: "they [the Japanese troops] occupied that city in December. We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day. Groups of Chinese civilians were formed, bound with their hands behind their backs, and marched outside the walls of the city where they were killed in groups by machine gun fire and with bayonets. [9], On December 12, under heavy artillery fire and aerial bombardment, General Tang Sheng-chi ordered his men to retreat. historians have been unable to accurately estimate the death toll from the massacre. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and they shot her. [42] He argued that Chinese soldiers who had thrown away their uniforms were legally executed because the laws of war at the time did not apply to them, though this line of reasoning is hotly disputed by other historians. This article is part of . The two men were described as vying to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword before the capture of Nanjing. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash desperately. Documents on the Rape of Nanking, p. 254. Yang Daqing, "Convergence or Divergence? The door was open by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. [134] Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's biography of Mao claims Mao never made any comment either contemporaneously or later in his life about the massacre, but did frequently remark with enduring bitterness about a political struggle between himself and Wang Ming which also occurred in December 1937. During the post-war period, China . Targets within and outside of the city wallssuch as military barracks, private homes, the Chinese Ministry of Communication, forests and even entire villageswere completely burnt down, at an estimated value of US$2030 million (1937). [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. Tang gathered about 100,000 soldiers, largely untrained, including Chinese troops who had participated in the Battle of Shanghai. Answer (1 of 16): 1. "[30] However, both Kasahara and Yamamoto have noted that burial records can be problematic in ways that can exaggerate or underestimate the true death toll of the massacre. The second one is right - the Rape of Nanking wasn't as bad as people say. For Japan, it was a question they needed to answer but were reluctant to do so because they too identified themselves as victims after the A-bombs. There was considerable destruction to areas outside the city walls. Originally titled 13 Flowers of Nanjing, this is the story of a group of schoolgirls that find refuge in a church compound run by an American priest.The year is 1937. After decades of struggle, the Nanking Massacre had become a recognized piece of Japanese history. We thus have a total of more than 300,000 victims. [40], However, the expansion of the definition of the Nanking Massacre to include areas outside of Nanking has not been without controversy. [25] Since then the death toll of the massacre has been a major topic of discussion among historians across the world. A year before that a series of "smaller courts" held in China, including in Nanjing, put the death toll at 300,000. [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. 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. [18][33] Though Ikuhiko Hata has also used Japanese military records to calculate the death toll of the massacre, he does not account for exaggeration as Itakura did. 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. The last refugee camps were closed in May 1938. [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. The Nanking Massacre was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (then spelled Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.The massacre occurred over a period of six weeks starting on December 13, 1937, the day that the Japanese captured Nanjing. However, Askew notes that Japanese units often exaggerated their body counts. 83 and 85 on Canton Road. More than 30 women and girls have been raped. "2001 ASSLH conference Chinese seamen and Australian labour: The mass desertion from the, International Committee for the Nanjing Safety Zone, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, killing contest between two Japanese officers, Learn how and when to remove this template message, introducing citations to additional sources, John Rabe and International Safety Zone Memorial Hall, List of war apology statements issued by Japan, discriminatory policies against minority groups, Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, "29 July 1946. 5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanjing and demanded entrance. On 13 December, the 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army were the first to enter the city, facing little military resistance. [29], The Japanese either destroyed or concealed important documents, severely reducing the amount of evidence available for confiscation. The slaughter of civilians is appalling. However, the actual number of victims is hard to determine, according to the government of Japan. Pi means "hip," kankan means "look." [2] In reviewing this survey, Askew concluded that all of its "centrists" were effectively deniers of the atrocity except for Hara. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. He and his staff realized that they could not risk the annihilation of their elite troops in a symbolic but hopeless defense of the capital. Files. Kasahara generally concludes that the death toll must have been well over 100,000, and possibly around 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. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. 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. [28], Prince Asaka issued an order to "kill all captives," thus providing official sanction for the crimes which took place during and after the battle. Eyewitness accounts include testimonies of expatriates engaged in humanitarian work (mostly physicians, professors, missionary and businessmen), journalists (both Western and Japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. [124] Kasahara said that if there was a full investigation of the massacre, many other high ranking authorities, which include higher level commanders, army leaders and emperor Hirohito, could have been implicated. [26][89] Daqing Yang, a historian at George Washington University, believes that "an obsession with figures reduces an atrocity to abstraction and serves to circumvent a critical examination of the causes of and responsibilities for these appalling atrocities"[90] and Carol Gluck concurs that "The crucial historical question remains the moral one: how could ordinary Japanese have done what they did? [50] In their view Honda, who had previously put forward the idea that more than 100,000 people were murdered in the city of Nanking alone, was failing to prove his argument and therefore sought to extend the boundaries of the massacre until a larger figure for the death toll could be achieved. The following day, on December 10, Rabe got his answer from the Generalissimo. One thousand disarmed Chinese soldiers, whom the International Committee hoped to save, were taken from them and by this time are probably shot or bayoneted. In late December 1937 and early January 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army perpetrated one of the most horrific war crimes of the World War II era. Some other Japanese military leaders in charge at the time of the Nanjing Massacre were not tried only because by the time of the tribunals they had either already been killed or committed seppuku (ritual suicide). ", "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? The horrific events are known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing, as tens of thousands of women and girls were sexually assaulted. I am born in China. From February 7, 1938, killings were no longer in mass fashion as the senior Japanese officers came to restore discipline of their troops, according to the testimony of, Quote: "The Japanese Army, one million strong, has already conquered. Chinese women didn't wear under-pants. For example, a two-volume collection of military documents related to the Nanjing operations was published in 1989; and disturbing excerpts from Kesago Nakajima's diary, a commander at Nanjing, was published in the early 1980s. There are no official numbers for the death toll in the Nanking Massacre, though estimates range from 200,000 to 300,000 people. Tang Junshan, survivor and witness to one of the Japanese army's systematic mass killings, testified:[64]. 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 Japanese government had previously agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces, and the members of the Committee managed to persuade the Chinese government to move their troops out of the area. [1], Japanese military records are a valuable source for estimating the number of Chinese POWs massacred by Japanese soldiers, but the number of civilians massacred is more difficult to determine. He reportedly told one of his civilian aides: I now realize that we have unknowingly wrought a most grievous effect on this city. [59] However, Jean-Louis Margolin does not believe that the Nanjing atrocities should be considered a genocide because only prisoners of war were executed in a systematic manner and the targeting of civilians was sporadic and done without orders by individual actors. "[150][151], On February 24, 2012, Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara denied the Nanjing massacre. The Japanese army leadership assigned sections of the safety zone to some units to separate alleged plain-clothed soldiers from the civilians. In December 1937, Japanese troops assaulted Nanjing after pursuing retreating Chinese forces. This created panic in the area and hundreds of women moved into the Ginling College campus yesterday. A mass grave from the Nanjing Massacre. Clearly define Japans responsibility sorry for the death toll of the safety zone to some to! Notes that Japanese units often exaggerated their body counts of struggle, the POWs could only scream and desperately... By day the government of Japan, p. 85 continue unless China repents February 24 2012..., were raped to death and executed in 1949 Japanese army 's mass... Since then the death toll in the area and hundreds of women moved into the College.: [ 64 ] have been well over 100,000, and possibly around 200,000 Ginling College campus yesterday troops had. 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Well over 100,000, and possibly around 200,000 - the Rape of Nanking wasn & # ;...
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