The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

Author - Iris Chang ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Penguin (Non-Classics) was reviewed on 16-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). First of, I would like to express that it is important for everyone to know about the Rape of Nanking, as I believe it is an important subject and that it is not talked about enough in schools today.

I had to read this book for one of my classes. I already knew a bit about the event, having covered it in other courses throughout college, but I was highly disappointed with the factual errors and oversimplification exhibited by the author in the book. Chang is blatantly biased, which I suppose is acceptable considering the horrendous tragedy inflicted on the Chinese of Nanking, yet she lets this bias spill over into her books and states many inaccuracies and exaggerations as facts. For instance although it was one of many historical capitals of China, Nanking was a fairly small city during World War II due largely to famine and civil war before Japanese invasion. Many of the people executed in Nanking were not only from the city but also from the surrounding provinces or other POW´s, thus it is hard to say if the actual number is significantly higher or lower, though I must say that I personally believe it to be between 150,000-200,000 people.

I also find it disturbing that Chang does not adequately have a reason for the Japanese causing such devastation in Nanking. Even a brutal military government must find a legitimate reason to butcher hundreds of thousands of people. In the epilogue, she stated that the violence was an act of love, "a struggle between brothers," while also stating the Japanese had "virulent contempt" for the Chinese. These are quite contradictory, and although i can never say for certain if these are true there is a more plausible reason. The Chinese did not have a regular army at this point; they were split into nationalist, communist, and warlord militias or guerrilla groups, with the nationalists bearing the brunt of fighting the Japanese. As irregular soldiers, they often fought in civilian clothes in hit and run tactics. The soldiers would often hide within the general population until a chance to strike again then melt into another sector of the populace. This is not a new tactic, it has been used by guerrilla´s around the world for a very long time. The Japanese Army had suffered many casualties and had been frustrated at not facing regular troops like they had been trained to do. When they subjugated Nanking they did what they thought best to do at the time: preserve their own lives, kill as many of the able bodied men they found and cast fear into the population so they won´t harbor irregular troops. The Rape of Nanking was the venting of frustration Japanese troops had endured in China with few rewards in between and little chance of returning home whole.

I find the overall view of Japanese history, modern culture and character to be overly simplified and stereotyped. Much of the revisionist views expressed towards the end of the book are from Japanese ultra-nationalists and is hardly reflective of Japanese society. The Japanese left is very prominent in offering apologies and amends and has kept the issue alive and hot. We must also remember that Japan today is not the same as Imperial Japan, that it is a nation ashamed of it´s expansionist past and has kept quiet for so long because the country as a whole knew it had done something horrendous. What neo-nazi´s say in places like Germany is not reflective of the general population, it is just a fringe group.

Overall, I would say the book covers an important subject but the author should have researched more and not stereotyped the Japanese and perhaps given the book a more balanced look at the reaction in China, Japan, and the West¤

2) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). Although this book is horrifying in its detail, it is a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about what happened in Asia during WWII. It is truly sad that as Americans we seem to only focus on what has happened to us and our European neighbors during the war.¤

3) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). I had known about this book for quite some time, but only got around to reading it recently. You need quite a bit of mental fortitude to get through such a book; it is graphic in the extreme. I stealed myself for the effort, but got quite upset by about page 80. The accounts of savagery - gang rape almost always followed by murder, dousing people with gas and setting them alight, bayoneting practice, ad infinitum - require a kind of mental detachment that may be hard to summon. But the book is much, much more than accounts from diaries, etc., although these are fascinating. There is all sorts of research here; interesting tidbits on everything from the manner in which the city of Nanjing was abandoned by Chiang Kai-shek to the Tokyo War Crimes tribunal to CCP spin on the atrocities after it came to power to the incredible efforts to deny and cover up the event in Japan. I seldom use the phrase ´page-turner´ to decribe a book (it´s a bit cliche, no?), but that´s what this book is; one mind-boggling, shocking scenario after another, brimming with facts and examples all penned in a fine style. The subtitle, ´The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II,´ is apt, not some marketing ploy. The parts about John Rabe alone, a Nazi living in Nanjing at the time, who did whatever he could to save people´s lives (including inform Adolf Hitler of the genocide), make this worth reading. The Rape of Nanking is a fascinating "lost chapter" of twentieth century world history.¤

4) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). Reading this book reminded me about the unsightly tragedies that happened in Korea during the wartime as well. I remember my Korean grandmother telling me horrible stories of her childhood as she witnessed the people around her getting killed and bombed from the Japanese.

I am surrounded by Japanese-American and native Japanese friends, and I can say with a certain fact that they are not stupid or ignorant to this history. Also, they are very keen in understanding what has transpired and apologetic about their ancestors doings, but don´t feel guilty themselves...for, why should they?

I remember many of my friend´s Korean parents would tell me, as I grew up playing at my friend´s house, to never play with Japanese people and that they were all cold-hearted. Maybe they were then, because of the pressures of the war, but this is not true now. My point is, we should not blame the current society and spread racist remarks or hatred to the individual people of Japan, but instead show our concerns to the government.

I also think that war makes people inhuman. This is unfortunate, but from the history I´ve studied, is true. Looking at the Al Qaeda, Nazi, Stalin´s slaughters, Darfur, and the constant wars that go on today, it is not the people but the war itself that creates beasts within us.¤

5) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). It astounds me that so few people know about the horrific events in China, and particularly Nanking, during WWII. This book can change that. No one can read the work without coming away with a new understanding of how easily human nature can be twisted to doing the unthinkable. Like the Nazis of Germany, the Japanese soldiers talked about in the work are people just like we are, but because of the circumstances and culture in which they were thrust they were capable of truly horrific things. The Rape of Nanking primarily describes what happened when the Japanese occupied the city. It is an apt title. Huge numbers of women were literally raped to death. The numbers of atrocities described in the book are astounding and terrifying. Like the Holocaust in Europe, however, they are important to remember.

When I read the work, the stories of heroism and courage literally brought me to tears. I eagerly examined the pictures in the center of the book so I could see with my own eyes the people that I had grown to admire and feel such overwhleming compassion for while reading. Not only is the work full of the terrifying reality of what people are capable of, it also contains amazing stories of heroism. This, more than the atrocities, was what brought the tears to my eyes.

One cuatiounary note: I have seen some reviewers question some of the figures given in the work. Many believe that it severely overestimates the numbers of people who died during the occupation. However, even if the numbers are vastly overestimated, the events described in the book are real and staggering. Everyone should know what happened there, and I recommend this book to readers mature enough to handle the graphic content.¤

6) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered--a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written what will surely be the definitive history of this horrifying episode. The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Among these was the Nazi John Rabe, an unlikely hero whom Chang calls the "Oskar Schindler of China" and who worked tirelessly to protect the innocent and publicize the horror. More than just narrating the details of an orgy of violence, The Rape of Nanking analyzes the militaristic culture that fostered in the Japanese soldiers a total disregard for human life. Finally, it tells the appalling story: about how the advent of the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterizes this conspiracy of silence, that persists to this day, as "a second rape."¤

7) Paperback Book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Penguin (Non-Classics). China has endured much hardship in its history, as Iris Chang shows in her ably researched The Rape of Nanking, a book that recounts the horrible events in that eastern Chinese city under Japanese occupation in the late 1930s. Nanking, she writes, served as a kind of laboratory in which Japanese soldiers were taught to slaughter unarmed, unresisting civilians, as they would later do throughout Asia. Likening their victims to insects and animals, the Japanese commanders orchestrated a campaign in which several hundred thousand--no one is sure just how many--Chinese soldiers and noncombatants alike were killed. Chang turns up an unlikely hero in German businessman John Rabe, a devoted member of the Nazi party who importuned Adolf Hitler to intervene and stop the slaughter, and who personally saved the lives of countless residents of Nanking. She also suggests that the Japanese government pay reparations and apologize for its army´s horrific acts of 60 years ago.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 13-Nov-2008, 01402774479780140277449, 470-680-740-470-4YB-K4B-OQB-8

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