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reasons for the nanking massacre
world history chapter 16 ww2
the nanking massacre, essay
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When most American people think of Germany, they think of sports cars made for the autobahn, sauerkraut, Adolf Hitler, and the Holocaust. Compared to Germany, when most American people think of Japan they think of sushi, Godzilla movies, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was such a significant event in history that almost 70 years after it came to an end, today’s younger generations often associate former Axis controlled countries with the war. People around the world are filled with disgust and immense hate when they hear the name Hitler, mainly because of his leadership under the Holocaust; which was the discriminatory mass genocide of 11-17 million people, the vast majority of which were European Jews. Hirohito, former Emperor of Japan, should strike a similar bell with people when they hear his name because Japan carried out genocide on Chinese civilians and soldiers in World War II. Japan’s attack on the Chinese city of Nanking, was one of the most atrocious events in history. This event has been named both the Nanking Massacre and the Rape of Nanking. The torturous, violent techniques used by the Japanese army upon Chinese civilians and soldiers including dehumanizing them, addicting them to drugs, and other perverse and violent acts, are some of the most grosteque methods ever recorded that could only be thought of by sadistic Japanese soldiers. The events committed by the Japanese army in Nanking, are equally as disgusting as the acts that Nazi Germany committed and should become a major topic involved with World War II in the future, despite the lack of light shed on it in the past for various reasons.
Many Americans feel sympathy for the Japanese people, alth...
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...ce of ordinary people, fear of retribution from the Japanese underground they still believed to be in existence… (Yamamoto p. 190).” Even after the war, the Chinese were so traumatized by the vile actions that they were still afraid that the Japanese army would return to treat as livestock once more.
Works Cited
Sheridan, Michael. “Black Museum of Japan’s war crimes.” The Sunday Times. The Sunday Times, 31 July 2005. Web. 31 July 2005.
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: BasicBooks, 1997. Print.
The rape of Nanking. Dir. Sammy Jackson. A & E Television Networks, 2002. DVD.
Rabe, John. The Good Man of Nanking: the Diaries of John Rabe. Edited by Erwin Wickert. Translated by John E. Woods. New York: Alfred A. Knope, 1998.
Yamamoto, Masahiro. Nanking: Anatomy of An Atrocity. London: Praeger, 2000. Print.
...target to escape and even held a competition of the person who kills 100 people first will win the game. The Japanese keeps denying their actions and refuse to give an official apology to all the offenders. Their officials go to shrine to pay homage on their so-called heroes, ignoring how these “heroes” have deeply injured the Chinese. During the Holocaust, alive human beings were taken to the chamber of gas and organs were taken to do the experiment. How the Nazi treated the Jewish was similar to how the Japanese treated the Chinese.
Ma, Sheng-Mei. "Contrasting Two Survival Literatures: On the Jewish Holocaust and the Chinese Cultural Revolution." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 2.1 (1987): 81-93.
Sabin, Burritt. "The War's Legacy [sic]: Dawn of a tragic era", Japan Times, February 8, 2004 (
The rape of Nanking occurred during World War II by the Japanese onto Chinese civilians. Nanking was a newly established capital in the Republic of China that was a part of the plan of attack for the Japanese to assert its power in Asia. While the Chinese had them outnumbered greatly, the Japanese utilized the power of deception in order to make their way into the city of Nanking. For example, the soldiers would promise the Chinese fair treatment if they were to stop resisting the invasion. This plan worked exceptionally well, as the captives believed what they were told and allowed the Japanese to tie them up. Very few actually resisted the attacks and simply hoped they would be treated better by the Japanese if they complied.
World War II played host to some of the most gruesome and largest mass killings in history. From the start of the war in 1939 until the end of the war in 1945 there were three mass killings, by three big countries on those who they thought were lesser peoples. The rape of Nanking, which was carried out by the Japanese, resulted in the deaths of 150,000 to 200,000 Chinese civilians and POW. A more well-known event was of the Germans and the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazi regime persecuted and killed over 500,000 Jews. This last country may come as a surprise, but there is no way that someone could leave them out of the conversation. With the dropping of the Atomic bombs the United States killed over 200,000, not including deaths by radiation, in the towns of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and ultimately placed the United States in the same group as the Japanese and the Germans. What are the alternatives other than dropping the two A-bombs and was it right? The United States and President Truman should have weighed their opting a little bit more before deciding to drop both atomic bombs on the Islands of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In the case of dropping the atomic bombs the United States did not make the right decision. This essay will explain through logic reasoning and give detailed reasons as to why the United States did not make the right choice.
To conclude, the Rape of Nanking was a terrifying event, which has, throughout the impact of the Japanese government and the fear of the people who survived, happened to be designed to disappear with time. History textbooks go over the subject along with the individuals whose reality that was; have already been made into a terrified silence. This story nevertheless, must be shared. Three hundred thousand Japanese men and women were brutally raped and killed over a long amount of time, a period where there was clearly no escape. Iris Chang goes back and reveals the incidents and the reasons behind the concealing, in such a way that simply cannot be forgotten about.
Japanese immigration created the same apprehension and intolerance in the mind of the Americans as was in the case of Chinese migration to the U.S at the turn of the 19th century. They developed a fear of being overwhelmed by a people having distinct ethnicity, skin color and language that made them “inassimilable.” Hence they wanted the government to restrict Asian migration. Japan’s military victories over Russia and China reinforced this feeling that the Western world was facing what came to be known as “yellow peril”. This was reflected in the media, movies and in literature and journalism.4 Anti-Oriental public opinion gave way to several declarations and laws to restrict Japanese prosperity on American land. Despite the prejudice and ineligibility to obtain citizenship the ...
The Virtual Museum Of The City Of San Francisco has established a great source for those interested in studying the internment of Japanese during World War II. This topic is reflected very accurately and fairly in the archives of the museum because the archives consist of primary documents. Their archives of original newspaper articles are the basis of this research document. The content listed on the museum’s web site is very relevant to the topic of Japanese internment because it provides a wealth of primary documents including opinions of ordinary people writing to their newspaper to express a wide variety of viewpoints on the subject of Japanese internment during the Second World War. One question stands above all others and the virtual museum gives a good first-hand account of events to answer it - what happened to the Japanese and why were they forced to move? To answer this question, the archives of the Virtual Museum Of The City Of San Francisco should be consulted.
In Daqing Yang’s “The Malleable and the Contested”, he gives a detailed explanation on when and how the Nanjing Massacre became such a controversial issue both in China and Japan today. He primarily focuses on the publications that brought awareness of the incident. He also signifies how politics can be a factor in these memories. Right after Japan’s defeat, Japanese atrocities were brought up to the Tokyo War Trials. During the early post-war period, the Nanjing Massacre was acknowledged in Japanese textbooks. It was not until the conservative Liberal Democratic Party’s establishment that the focus on the massacre was lightened in textbooks. On the other hand, the People’s Republic of China brought up the massacre by portraying the communist as the winner who fought against the Japanese in the war, and also focused more on how the United States was the key factor that caused the massacre instead of the Japanese. Yang points out in his article “As China continued its internal struggles to weed out domestic enemies, class conflict, rathe...
Chŏng, Sang-yong, and Si-min Yu. Memories of May 1980: A Documentary History of the Kwangju Uprising in Korea. Seoul: Korea Democracy Foundation, 2003. Print.
During December of 1937, the ancient city of Nanking was invaded by the Japanese army, who would eventually go on to murder and rape innocent civilians and bring the death toll to surpass that of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, combined. What happened there is re-told through three perspectives, that of the soldiers who performed the attack, of the civilians who suffered and survived, and finally of the select group of Europeans and Americans who fought to save over 300,000 people from this atrocity. One such hero is John Rabe, a Nazi, who Iris Chang goes so far as to refer to as the “Oskar Schindler of China”. He, along with many others, tirelessly worked to save these people and to reveal the true horrors. Through his and other accounts, the afflictions that the people of Nanking endured are exposed and brought to the publics’ attention.
Much of what is considered modern Japan has been fundamentally shaped by its involvement in various wars throughout history. In particular, the events of World War II led to radical changes in Japanese society, both politically and socially. While much focus has been placed on the broad, overarching impacts of war on Japan, it is through careful inspection of literature and art that we can understand war’s impact on the lives of everyday people. The Go Masters, the first collaborative film between China and Japan post-WWII, and “Turtleback Tombs,” a short story by Okinawan author Oshiro Tatsuhiro, both give insight to how war can fundamentally change how a place is perceived, on both an abstract and concrete level.
In the 1930s, the Empire of Japan made a series of aggressive military actions in the Pacific region aimed at expanding their territory. The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, China in 1937, and French Indochina in 1940. During this time, the Japanese military conducted a series of violent attacks on the civilian population of China. The famous "Rape of Nanking" or Nanking Massacre took place at the hands of the Japanese in 1938, where an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed.
Nanking suffered a severe tragedy in six weeks that its memories fail to erase. The tragedy consisting of rape, murder, and looting will never disappear from the city or its inhabitants. Thanks to John Rabe and several others, thousands of Chinese were able to survive. The history of the massacre was slowly dying, but because of books and museums, the history lives onward. The Japanese have not repaired Nanjing or educated their own country about their own mistakes. The Japanese still refuse to believe that the massacre even occurred even though there are pictures of the event and vital proof. The Japanese have surely left a blood stain in the history of this world.
In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking, China. They killed 300,00 out of the 600,000 people in China’s capital city. The six-week rampage by the Japanese is now known as the Rape of Nanking and the single worst atrocity during WWII era in either the European or Pacific theaters of the war.