The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs

by James Yin, Shi Young, Ron Dorfman (Editor)

In more than a half-century since the end of World War II, relatively little has been published about the Japanese occupation of China, during which an estimated 30 million Chinese were killed. The Rape of Nanking, or Nanking Massacre, in which at least 369,366 people were slaughtered and 80,000 women were raped by Japanese invasion troops, has become little more than a historical footnote in the West.
The horror began on the morning of December 13, 1937, when the Japanese Imperial Army captured Nanking (Nanjing), which was then China's capital. Soldiers went through the streets indiscriminately killing Chinese men, women, and children without apparent provocation or excuse until in places the streets and alleys were littered with the bodies of their victims.
Thousands of women were raped by Japanese soldiers; death was frequently the penalty for the slightest resistance by a victim or members of her family. Even large numbers of young girls and old women were raped throughout the city, and many cases of abnormal and sadistic behavior in connection with these rapes were reported. Many women were killed after the act and their bodies mutilated.
For the next six weeks, while horrific rape continued, wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent sanction of the Japanese high command. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and disarmed ex-soldiers were arrayed in formation, their hands bound behind their backs, and marched outside the city wall where, in groups, they were beheaded, or buried alive, or bayoneted, or raked with machine-gun fire, or doused with gasoline and burned.
This book, using more than 400 historical photographs, many of which were taken by Japanese soldiers themselves, is published to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Rape of Nanking, to remind the world of the forgotten holocaust of WWII, and to honor history and answer any attempt to deny or change it.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Gender, Japan, China, War, Gender Studies

319 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1996

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pulled this book off my shelves because I am watching Zhang Yimou's incredible "The Flowers of War." It contains way too many way too graphic pictures of Japanese Army brutality. The documentary evidence is indisputable and the horrors depicted here easily rival those of the Holocaust albeit in a much more condensed time frame and without the systematic efficiency of the Nazis. How many died in the three week period in 1937? Was it 200,000 as some estimates say or was it 360,000 as this book maintains? I don't know. But the ways in which the Imperial Japanese soldiers executed their brutality is every bit as bad as the SS brutality. Japan has never acknowledged The Rape of Nanking in all its bestial brutality. I've been at Auschwitz five times and Majdanek twice, but the pictures in this book match anything I saw in those places for sheer horror. Desmond Tutu wrote a forward for this book noting "To sweep under the carpet the atrocities which occurred in Nanking ... and to turn a blind eye to the truth is at best a gross service to future generations and at worst to be criminally negligent and irresponsible. A record such as this book is an essential part of our history. However terrible, we must not be sheltered from the evils of our past."

I can say with considerable certainty that this book was used by Zhang Zimou and those who made the movie mentioned above.

The authors conclude that between December 1937 and March 1938 at least 369,366 people were murdered and some 80,000 women were raped.

The other reason I originally bought this book is that I had (back then) just read Iris Chang's book on the Rape of Nanking.

This book is definitely not for the faint of heart.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to be confused with iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, this would make a good companion piece though. Split up into nine chapters starting with the fall of Nanking through to the final death toll the book covers, with images & text, the massacre of prisoners of war, looting and arson, torture and killing methods, brutal assaults carried out against women, so not for the faint of heart. Powerful, gut-wrenching, unforgettable, indeed the forgotten holocaust of WW2.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad the pictures were fuzzy...or else, I won't be able to sleep or eat afterwards....and I was kind of afraid to read the details too...Nonetheless, this is a historical account and all of us need to know about it.

[Shelly - The Illustrated Librarian - · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terribly hard to look at, but not to be denied. I looked at this book after reading "Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang.

[Leon Connors · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was genuinely sickening. The contents that is. I plan on reading the good man of nanking (the diary of the nazi who saved thousands of Chinese people).

I hadn't known anything about nanking except that it was some form of genocide. I actually initially believed the Chinese government had genocide their own civilians since that is one of their hobbies. But apparently, it was Japan during WWll.

Don't read if you can't handle graphic pictures and descriptions of torture, murder, rape, gore, and mutilation.

Luckily some of the photographs are more blurry and not of today's quality or else I may not have read it. But there are plenty that have decent quality.

At the end they share diary excerpts of Minnie Vautrin and the good man of nanking which I can't remember the name of right now.

They also share survivor testimonies throughout the book.

It really shows you the immorality that can occur among men in a war zone when they think no one is watching.

[Steve Parcell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting although very disjointed. Not pleasant reading at all

[Pia Jormel *manosalaobra_apn*]

I don't know if I'm ready to read non-fiction, but I recently finished the most wonderful romance book that left me eager to learn more about this topic.

[George Florin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly harrowing, especially if you see photos. Nothing can excuse the Japanese treatment of those people and they'll have to permanently live with it as a country.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of the photgraphs are difficult to make out because of the age or quality but you can still see whats happening or happened. Overall, the truth is captured and documented well and forever in this horrifying collection.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrific images but excellent historical documentation.