The Rape of Nanking

"The Rape of Nanking" details events that lead up to the rape, the attrocities during and what happened to the world after. Iris Chang goes into the causes leading to the rape of Nanking. She explains the beginning that Japan wanted more land and greater power in Asia. the Japanese government decided to look to other nations for military tactics and favored those of the Nazis. The government raised and taught children to be militaristic in preparation for an attack on mainland Asia. They started small terrorist attacks in China and fabricated events to be able to declare war on China. The Japanese took Manchuria and then attacked Shanghai. The seizure of Shanghai took longer than expected and the strain of this may be attributed to further brutality in China. the military leader for the Japanese force heading to Nanking became ill and was replaced by Prince Asaka. Civilians and soldiers alike knew that the Japanese were coming and fled Nanking. Many Chinese died in this mass evacuation. The Japanese then surrounded the city and cut off all transport then asked for a surrender and told the Chinese they would be treated humanely. When the Chinese didn't at first surrender the Japanese started to attack. Eventually more Chinese military leaders including Chang Kai Shek fled Nanking and the remaining soldiers surrendered. The Japanese then captured the larger Chinese force and systematically killed them. Once most of the soldiers were dead the Japanese turned on the civilian population. Their policy was to loot all, kill all, burn all. An estimated 300,000 civilians were killed in Nanking and tens of thousands of women were raped. The Japanese tortured civilians, experimented on them, held killing contests, brutally raped and committed attrocities worse than the Nazi holocaust. The international safety zone in Nanking helped to save hundreds of thousands of civilians and a Nazi, John Rabe, was one of the biggest heroes of Nanking. The Japanese tried to cover up what happened at Nanking after they lost the war and still today try to hide forever the Rape of Nanking. The attrocities committed weren't soley in Nanking but all along the Japanese war path. The Japanese never appologized to the Chinese and never paid for what they did to the Chinese civilians. Some of the Japanese commanders involved were sentenced to death or had their reputation ruined. When the PRC was established it forgave the Japanese much to the Chinese people's dismay.
In my education not much was ever said about the Sino-Japanese war and certainly nothing about the Rape of Nanking. More people should read Iris Chang's book in their schooling and be taught more about the rape. Learning it aids in preventing future similar incidents and demonstrates clearly that "the veneer of civilization seems to be exceedingly thin-one that can easily be stripped away."