Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs.(Review)

James Yin and Shi Young. Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs. Chicago: Triumph Books, 1996. 319 pp.

As Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Jewish Holocaust and Nazi atrocities in World War II, Nanking has become the symbol of the Japanese military's monstrous and savage cruelty in the Asian-Pacific War from 1931-1945. But in comparison to the Jewish Holocaust, relatively little has been written about the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in China, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia, where close to 50 million people died as a consequence of Japanese aggression. In China alone, an estimated 30 million people lost their lives. While there are thousands of volumes, numerous museum exhibits, documentaries, and feature films about the Holocaust, literature about the Japanese atrocities has been scant in the fifty years since the end of the war. In fact, Eugene B. Sledge has written that "the best kept secret about World War II is the truth about the Japanese atrocities" (Sledge, 297).

Why has this part of World War II been kept from the world, and why has the present-day Japanese government not faced up to its militarist past and has eluded justice? For one thing, the Japanese government has utilized, for all that it was worth, its position as the primary victim of the war because of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because the United States felt guilty and responsible for the bombings, we helped Japan rebuild and nurtured Japan's victim status. For another, the Cold War made it necessary for the United States to cultivate Japan as an ally to counter the Soviet and Chinese threat; therefore, its past transgressions were overlooked. China has also played a significant part in not publicizing the wartime atrocities because it was engaged in a vicious civil war of its own after World War II. And after the civil war concluded, both China and Taiwan "needed Japan to play off against each other" and subsequently needed Japan as a trading partner ("The Forgotten Victims of World War II"). Therefore, China has never demanded an apology or reparations.

Probably the most important reason for Japan's reticence, lack of remorse, and continued denials is what has been called the Showa-era continuum, or the transwar continuities in Japan. The most important symbol of this continuity is the reign of Emperor Hirohito after the war. He was exonerated from any responsibility for war crimes through a secret arrangement with General MacArthur, who engineered the surrender of Japan and the subsequent U.S. occupation. Emperor Hirohito, therefore, remained in power until his death in 1989. This is the equivalent of exonerating Hitler from war crimes committed by Germany during World War II. Along with the emperor, a great number of politicians, bureaucrats, and technocrats continued their positions in the public sector after a brief respite. They received a slap on the wrist and then went back to work. It was because of this continuity that Japan would never admit to the Rape of Nanking, preferring to regard it as a lie, a fabrication, or just a part of war.

It is equally regrettable that in Emperor Hirohito's Imperial Rescript, delivered on the occasion of Japan's surrender, he never mentioned remorse, guilt, or responsibility for the war in the Pacific. He denied any aggression on the part of Japan, stating that war was declared on America and Britain "to assure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia," nor did Japan intend "to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or embark upon territorial aggrandizement" (Imperial Rescript, August 15, 1945). Therefore, he admitted to no wrong-doing or the commitment of any war crimes. Japan came away with a clean bill of health.

However, as the century draws to a close, there are renewed calls to bring Japan to justice. Japan must come to terms with its past. As the Nobel Laureate for literature, Oe Kenzaburo, aptly noted: "[Japan's] unwillingness to come to terms with its past is not just morally offensive (emphasis added), it prevents Japan from playing its proper role in Asia" ("Denying History Disables Japan," New York Times, July 2, 1995).

Japanese designs on China began as early as the 1890s, after Japan's successful program of modernization during the Meiji period (1868-1912), culminating with China's defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. From that time on, China lost all respect and dignity in the eyes of the Japanese, who looked upon China as territory to be exploited as a colony or semi-colony, in a manner similar to European and American claims on Asia and Africa as "manifest destiny."

In the 1930s, at the height of the worldwide depression, Japan's expansionists and militarists once again looked at China as their rightful claim. Lt. Colonel Ishiwara wrote in 1930: "Japan's survival depends upon a favorable resolution of the problem of Manchuria and Mongolia," "Japan must expand overseas to achieve political stability at home," "The future of Manchuria and Mongolia will only be satisfactorily decided when Japan obtains those areas" and "Japan must be willing to fight America to achieve our national objectives" (Ienaga 11). Thus, the blueprint for the Asian-Pacific War was laid. On September 18, 1931, the Japanese staged an incident in Mukden (present-day Shenyang), later called the Manchurian Incident, which led to the seizure and occupation of the whole of Manchuria. For the militarists, Manchuria was still not enough-they eyed the whole of China. In 1937, the Japanese instigated the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident" outside Beijing, which led to all-out war and occupation of China. There is no question that the war that ensued from 1937-1945 was one of the bloodiest in human history. Wherever Japanese soldiers went, there were atrocities committed on both civilians and military combatants; the Japanese considered POWs a burden.

While these events have not occupied headline news recently, within the past ten years there has been a gradual awakening of interest in the history of the Asian-Pacific region, and a flurry of books have appeared about the Asian-Pacific War, including the seven books listed above. However, it is Iris Chang's recent volume, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, that ignited a groundswell of interest in the Asian-Pacific War which even shocked the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Kunihiko Salto, who criticized the book and the attention that it was getting at a press conference on April 21, 1998.

The Chinese Perspective

For over half a century the Chinese and others have remained relatively reticent about Japanese atrocities. This should not be taken to mean, however, that there has been any lack of pain, suffering, and anguish among the surviving victims, or friends and relatives of the victims. In fact, Iris Chang's family is a good example of how memories of the war were passed on from one generation to the next. Iris Chang received her inspiration to write about Nanking from her maternal grandparents, who escaped the Nanking massacre by just one month, and from her own parents. Since the war experience was an integral part of the family memory, it was frequently the subject of conversation at the Chang family gatherings. However, it was not until 1992 that the ideas about the subject began to coalesce, and two more years of gestation before the ideas were galvanized into a book project. The immediate cause was a conference sponsored by the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of World War II in Asia (AOHWA), held in Cupertino, California, which presented poster-sized photographs of the Rape of Nanking. Chang described them as "some of the most gruesome photographs I had ever seen in my life" (Chang, 9). After more than two years of intensive research, the final product is The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, which has been reprinted seventeen times to date, with 130,000 copies currently in print.

During the course of her research, Chang would have nightmares. She woke up in the middle of the night shaking with anger, she lost weight, lost hair, and had trouble sleeping and eating. There was also an urgency about Chang's book, in that the survivors and witnesses to the massacre at Nanking were fast disappearing.

The seven books listed above are not pleasant to read. Many sections are unbearably gruesome to read for …