The Rape of Nanking (2007) - full transcript

One of the greatest
atrocities of world history

is the Rape of Nanking.

All human beings

are capable of committing
these kinds of atrocities -

not just the Japanese
or the Germans.

I think all human beings have
this capacity for great evil

if put under the right social
and political circumstances.

The Rape of Nanking,

was something that
always could happen,

and it did happen,

and we have to
learn from history



if we want to make sure
it doesn't happen again.

And now a news update.

Early this morning
the body of writer

and human rights
activist Iris Chang

was discovered in her parked
car off the interstate highway

near San Jose, California.

The 36-year-old author was
best known for her book,

'The Rape of Nanking',

which described the mass
slaughter of Chinese civilians

by the Japanese
Imperial Army in 1937.

The internationally
acclaimed best-seller

was the first major work in
English about the massacre.

Chang, who had been
suffering from depression,

died of a gunshot wound, the
victim of an apparent suicide.



MUSIC

I grew up hearing stories
about Japan invading China

and Chinese people
being massacred

by Japanese soldiers in Nanking,

but I didn't know
all the details.

I had just finished
writing my first book and

Nanking was one of the topics
I was considering for the next.

Then some friends of mine told
me about this conference

on the Rape of Nanking that
was being put together

by a group of Chinese activists.

So I drove up from Santa Barbara
where I was living at the time,

to Cupertino to see
what I could find out.

At that time, I
really didn't know

if there was enough
for a book there.

Japan's post-war
prosperity ended

with the Great Depression.

Unemployment soared, millions
were thrust into poverty.

Japan's military leaders
believed expansion into China,

with its vast resources,

was the solution to the
country's problems.

The economic crisis gave
them the opportunity

they had been waiting for.

In 1931 they struck.

EXPLOSION

Japanese troops seized
control of Manchuria,

a huge area of Northwest China.

Over the next few years they
marched east, then south,

conquering provinces one by one.

China was in no position
to put up much resistance.

The nationalist government of
Chiang Kai-shek was embroiled

in a vicious civil war with
Mao Zedong's communists,

and was preoccupied
with its own survival.

But, by 1936, with the survival
of the country itself at stake,

the two sides formed
an uneasy alliance

to confront the
Japanese invaders.

Full-scale war was inevitable.

It came in the summer of 1937.

A minor clash near Beijing was
trumped up by the Japanese.

It was the excuse they'd
been looking for.

They captured Beijing and, in
August, attacked Shanghai.

EXPLOSION

SCREAMING

In November, after a
fierce three-month battle,

the city fell.

MUSIC

The Japanese army then marched
on the capital city of Nanking,

laying waste to
everything in its path.

As refugees and retreating
Chinese soldiers

streamed towards Nanking,
Japanese bombers terrorized

the inhabitants of the
city with daily air raids.

By December 12th

Japanese troops
were massed outside

the walled city of Nanking.

The next day, they
entered the city

and began raping and
murdering its citizens

in an orgy of violence that has
few parallels in modern history.

My parents were the ones who

told me about the
Nanking Massacre

when I was a little girl growing
up in a Midwestern college town.

My parents are
science professors

and they're very talkative,
and always told me

what it was like for them to
grow up during the war in China.

Their parents -- my
grandparents-- barely escaped
with their lives.

When the Japanese invaded
Shanghai, my father's father

was the mayor of one
of the suburbs there.

He quickly sent his
family away to safety,

but it was his duty to stay
behind to help defend the city.

So he cannot go and it is my
mother who has to bring all

four children to safety.

There's no water, there's no
food, and the train was loaded.

EXPLOSION

The Battle of Shanghai
lasted three months.

That was very hard
for my mother.

She was very worried and
the city was cut off.

There was three months
there was no news

between my mother and my father.

My mother's father worked for
the Nationalist Government

in Nanking and had already sent
his family to a safer area.

Then, in the middle of November
'37, Chiang Kai-shek decided

to move the government
headquarters inland.

My grandfather and other
officials were ordered to

evacuate immediately... with
or without their families.

My mother was
visiting her mother,

so he sent a message to my
mother in the village to ask her

to come to WuHu
Institute Nanking.

This is about four days because
the ship going to leave.

And he went to the dock of
the WuHu everyday to check

the arrival of my mother
with her one-year-old,

and there's no sight of her.

Finally he was left with
this choice of either

leaving the area, taking
that last ship from Nanking

and perhaps never seeing
his family again,

or waiting and perhaps
never seeing her anyway,

and then run the risk of being
massacred by the Japanese.

It was a horrible choice that
no man should ever make.

And finally, as he
was about to leave

because the ship really was
on its way out of the region,

he cried out her name and just
screamed it to the heavens.

"Yipei! Yipei!"
- that's my mother's name.

And, uh, there's a miracle.

On the corner of the
Yangtze River there's a...

...the last sampan come
towards the WuHu, and there's
my mother

sticking her head and
saying, "I'm here!"

My mother was on the boat!

Some of the stories --war
stories -- would filter down to
me when

I was a little girl growing up
in Champagne-Urbana, Illinois.

And my mother and father said
that the Rape of Nanking

had been so intense that

thousands upon thousands
of people were killed

and the bodies that had been
thrown into the Yangtze River

during the carnage literally
made the water turn red.

MUSIC

When I was a little girl I
had nightmares sometimes.

The stories were very,
very disturbing.

I remember there was one
I had over and over

where I was in a white dress,

being chased by a
Japanese soldier.

BREATHING HEAVILY

And I remember as a child

wanting to learn
more about this,

and after going to

my local school libraries,
public libraries,

I couldn't find a word about
this matter in English.

So the matter really remained
a mystery to me for years.

MUSIC

When I saw the photographs
at Cupertino,

it was like finally coming
face-to-face with the horrors

my parents had told me about.

And if anything, it was
worse than they had said.

There was this one picture of,

a man who had just
been decapitated.

His head was still
sitting on his neck.

MUSIC

HEAVY BREATHING

Basically, in a single
blinding moment

I saw the fragility
of human life...

and that's when I knew I
had to write this book.

It was like I had no choice.

I also felt that had I
been born in another era,

in another country,
in another time,

I could have easily been
one of those corpses,

one of those anonymous
corpses in a photograph.

And the idea that perhaps half a
century later no one would care

and that the perpetrators...

might even say that it
never happened at all;

that was just horrifying for me.

MUSIC

This is where it all started,
right in that room behind me.

I saw this young girl
with a ponytail, slender,

quite tall for a... for
a Chinese-American.

Excuse me, I was looking
at those pictures.

They're devastating and
I would really like

to borrow them to
make some copies.

I said, "What are you
gonna do with it?"

Oh, just for my records.

I said, "For what?"

I'm a professional writer.

Oh, yeah, I said, "Yeah, right."

Because she looks so
young I thought she was

a high school kid
writing a book report.

I said, "Well, this is
the kind of subject

you don't even want to touch."

She was intense, she was
focused, she was driven and

she was a go-getter, and I knew
that the first moment I saw her.

She looked at me in
the eyes and says,

"I'm gonna get it done,"

and without saying it, I
know that was a promise.

So the next morning we came
back, we started to go through

things we wanted to do and
how we're going to support it.

She said, "I need your help. I
don't know anybody in Nanking,

but I figure that's
where I'm gonna go.

So I need you to help
me to find leads."

Really? Your family
is from that area?

Like Humphrey Bogart said,

"It's the beginning of a good
friendship,

a beautiful friendship."

Having the people in Cupertino
behind me was a huge break,

but at the same time I
also felt very overwhelmed

because I had a lot of
people counting on me.

So one of the first things I
did was call Susan Rabiner,

my editor.

I had worked with her
on my first book,

Thread of the Silkworm.

And she said, "I'm wondering
if Basic would agree

if I paid for it, to do a
book that I want to do

that's very important
to my community?"

I said, "We don't work that way.

We're not going take
money from you.

Either we're going to believe
in the book and publish it, or

we're not going to publish it.

So tell me more
about the topic."

And she described the story
of the Rape of Nanking.

I was fascinated.

My entire career in
publishing had been related

to doing serious non-fiction
books by academics.

Here was an enormous topic
of great importance

and yet not one academic, it
appeared, had written about it.

I think there's a big question
to be asked and answered.

Why did it need a child of the
community to tell this story?

And second,

why had it disappeared
from the history books?

She talked to people
in the United States

who had been there in
Nanking at that time.

She spent a lot of time
in the National Archives

in Washington DC,

and also a lot of the people
in Nanking were missionaries

who had been - who
were from Yale,

and their records were
in the Yale archives.

The first question we were
asking is -- what happened? --

because the Japanese
claimed one thing,

the Chinese claimed
something else.

So by then we knew we wanted to tell the
story Rashomon (psychological thriller movie) style --

three different ways.

The first way would be from the
perspective of the --

the attackers, the Japanese, as
they remembered the incident.

The second time would be from
the perspective of the victims,

the Chinese, as they
remembered the incident.

But the critical factor was,
were there independent people

there who could either
verify the Japanese side,

or the Chinese side?

So very early on we were
focused on the independents.

When I started researching

I was surprised to find out
that the Rape of Nanking

was front-page news at the time.

Western journalists were
actually living in the city

when the Japanese invaded.

They saw what happened
with their own eyes

and their reports
about the massacre

were sent around the world.

About 20 other Westerners
stayed in Nanking as well,

businessmen, missionaries,
diplomats, and doctors,

and many of them wrote
detailed diaries

documenting the atrocities.

MUSIC

John McGee, an
American missionary,

even filmed the victims;
and when I saw his footage

I couldn't believe how brutal
the Japanese soldiers had been.

Dr. Robert Wilson worked day

and night treating
horrifying wounds.

Then there was Minnie Vautrin.

She turned her women's
college into a refugee camp.

And German businessman,
John Rabe,

hid hundreds of people
in his own house.

He was one of the foreigners
who stayed in the city

to create a 2 and a
half square-mile area,

which they called
the Safety Zone.

And they protected hundreds
of thousands of Chinese

from slaughter during the
worst of this massacre.

Wilhelmina Vautrin,

or Minnie Vautrin as her
friends called her,

was a missionary who grew
up in Secor, Illinois.

And in 1937,

she was the head of Jinling
Woman's College in Nanking.

When Nanking fell
to the Japanese,

Vautrin turned the campus
into a refugee camp.

Thousands of Chinese
women and children

poured into the zone with only
the clothes on their backs.

Soldiers would break
into the camps at night,

and kidnap a few women

before Vautrin and the other
missionaries could stop them.

Vautrin managed to
rescue a few girls

from the clutches of soldiers

and ordered the Japanese
out of the zone.

But these men were
not accustomed

to dealing with strong
women like Minnie Vautrin

and slapped her around
or threatened her

with their bloodied swords,

bayonets, and guns.

MUSIC

Minnie Vautrin was a
strong woman and a hero,

but in the end,

she found it impossible to
sustain the mental torture

of living in the hell
that was Nanking;

because shortly
after the massacre,

she suffered a nervous breakdown

and had to return to
the United States.

She never recovered.

Vautrin one day stopped up
the cracks of the house,

turned on the gas, and
committed suicide.

Minnie's testimony really made
a profound impression on Iris

and the fact after... that
after having lived through this

and actually playing
such a significant role

in saving so many of the
Chinese in Nanking,

that she was so tormented that
she committed suicide later,

you know, that was
something that, you know,

it didn't let go of Iris's mind.

From 8:30 this morning
until 8:00 this evening

I stood at the front gate
while the refugees poured in.

I've heard scores of heart
breaking stories of girls...

who were taken from
their homes last night.

Tonight a truck passed in which
there were eight or ten girls...

and as they passed they called
out, "Jiu Ming! Jiu Ming!...

Save our lives!"

Oh, God,

control the beastliness of the
soldiers in Nanking tonight

and comfort the heartbroken
mothers and fathers

whose innocent sons
have been shot today.

And guard... guard the young
men and girls through

the long, agonizing
hours of this night.

How ashamed the women
of Japan would be

if they knew these
tales of horror.

SNIFF

MUSIC

And then she said, "I read
the diary, I was crying,

I was broke down right there."

And she's crying. She
said... she really told me,

"If I finish the
Rape of Nanking,

I'm going to publish
this diary."

But she never had the
chance to do that.

But she didn't have any chance.

I'll dedicate my life

to get your stories told

I'll give voice
to the voiceless

silenced for too long...

Crying out for justice

silenced for too long,
trust me with your pain

I'll take it as my own.

I'll fight to get
the truth told

my weapon is my word.

MUSIC

She flew into Hong Kong and
she was gonna take a train

up to Nanking, and she
thought she was gonna get to

sort of be a tourist
for a few days.

It was like a steam locomotive,

there wasn't air
conditioning in the car,

and it was very, very crowded

and she got sick on
that train ride,

and she was sick her whole time
she was in China after that.

I went to China in the
summer of 1995 and

I interviewed about
a dozen survivors.

There are still several
hundred people in China

who remember the atrocities
vividly, who lived through them.

This is why I wanted to
write the book so quickly

and get it done.

I really felt an urgency here.

I was afraid that if
I waited too long

that all the voices from
the Rape of Nanking

would be extinguished
forever from old age.

Taxi!

She has already been
to China in '93

to do research on "Thread
of the Silkworm",

so she was comfortable
getting around in China.

HONKING

This is it.

MUSIC

The Global Alliance hooked
her up with the right people

people in China, and so
she talked to them a lot

over the phone and by e-mail
and regular mail in advance

and got everything well
lined up before she went.

She just went straight to the
people she wanted to talk to

and she didn't really try to
make a big deal about the fact

that she was there, you know,
digging up information.

I think she was definitely
under the radar

the whole time she was there.

My friend Professor Sun Zhai Wei

called me saying that

a writer in America wanted to come here

to write a book about the Nanjing Massacre

I had my doubts in the beginning

because she was too young

But having worked together for a while

I found that she was very good very professional

She looked like a university student when she first came

I asked her

"Why did you think to write such a book?"

And she replied

"The Nazis massacring the Jews

was something the whole world was familiar with

But in America in the West

the history of Japanese soldiers
massacring Nanjing civilians

this was something that very
few people knew about

She said "Being a Chinese descendent

I have a responsibility to write this book"

When I heard this speech of hers

I was incredibly touched

The three of us split up our work

Teacher Duan was responsible

for contacting the survivors

and to accompany Miss Chang to go and meet them

This job would be done in the daytime

Professor Yang was Iris Chang's translator

During the interview with the survivors

Professor Yang was the translator

As for me

I would be in the library in the
Archival Files Library

collecting together facts and figures

It was in 1995 that

I first met Iris Chang

when she came to my house to interview me

my home was still

in the same house where the massacre happened

She asked about the massacre first

She asked how my family died

how I lost my relatives

There were 9 of us in the family

and four people from the neighbouring home

A total of 13 people all hiding

I told her that 20 to 30 Japanese soldiers

lifted up their guns

and there was a white flag with a red spot on it

It's an old house

a house of the past

These were all demolished

all demolished

This was my home

When they came in they shot

and killed my father

My mother was holding a child

They grabbed the child

and smashed the baby to death

They ripped off my mother's clothing

Then the Japanese

rushed into our bedroom

My grandma and grandpa were sitting on the edge

of the bed protecting us we were four girls

lying on the bed

There was a quilt covering us

My grandpa and grandma would not move away

and so one was killed on this side

the other was killed on that side

Then I cried out loud

And I was stabbed three times

A stab here

a stab here and one at the back

Then I lost consciousness

In the evening of December 12th

the Chinese army that was guarding the gate

received orders to retreat

And so under the night's disguise

they retreated towards Xia Guan

The Japanese army did not know Chinese troops
had retreated

So from about 100 meters from here

initiated their first attacks

By December 13th at 3AM in the morning

the Japanese army had seized the gate

Chiang Kai-shek had
abandoned his capital.

Government officials and the
entire Chinese Air Force

had been ordered to leave.

The remaining Chinese
defenders with no air support

and poor communications were
trapped on the southern bank

of the river and
inside the city walls.

They had no choice
but to surrender.

The Japanese sent troops into the city

to search and arrest the unarmed Chinese soldiers

Some Chinese soldiers had nowhere to retreat to

stripped off their uniforms and put on civilian clothing

They then hid in the safety zone

The city is strangely silent.

Three dangers are past -

that of looting
Chinese soldiers,

bombing from aeroplanes, and
shelling from big guns.

But the fourth is
still before us -

our fate at the hands
of a victorious army.

People do not know
what to expect.

They found out soon enough.

From the moment they
entered the city,

Japanese troops
engaged in a campaign

of murder, rape,
looting and arson

that was so barbaric
a British reporter

actually compared them
to Attila and the Huns.

MUSIC

During the first few days,
the Japanese army killed

tens of thousands of defenceless
Chinese prisoners of war.

It's hard to believe it was
all done out in the open,

in full view, without shame.

I think they were actually
trying to kill almost any man

of military age in the city,
it wasn't just soldiers.

There were a lot of people who
were rickshaw pullers, you know,

police officers, coolies
who looked like soldiers,

but they weren't, and
they slaughtered

males in the city
indiscriminately.

They killed tens of thousands
of men in the city

during those first few days.

And even the Japanese
reporters were shocked

by the brutal behaviour
of their soldiers.

On December 13th, I saw
a mass killing of POWs.

The prisoners were lined
up atop the wall.

Then Japanese soldiers stabbed
them in the chest and abdomen.

One by one, the prisoners fell
down to the outside of the wall.

Blood splattered everywhere.

The chilling atmosphere made
one's hair stand on end

and limbs tremble with fear.

Literally we are a research team consisting of scholars

lawyers journalists

and labourers like myself

and our activity focuses on the Nanjing massacre

We started in 1988

and interviewed about 200 veterans

Words cannot describe the feeling

of climbing up the mountain of

dead bodies and stabbing them"

There were elderly and even children

We killed every one of them"

This is an excerpt from General
Nakajima Kesago's diary

dated December 13th, 1937:

"To comply with the policy
of not keeping prisoners,

we decided to
dispose of them all

but it's very difficult to
find ditches huge enough

to dispose of 7,000
or 8,000 people."

The first mass execution was conducted

in the Chinese Navy facility on the Yangtze River

This was like an experiment for the coming mass executions

They concluded that the execution was successful

which resulted in an even bigger scale of
mass execution on the 17th

killing over 10 000 people

They shot dead bodies with heavy
machine guns

over and over again

Then they poured gasoline over
them and set the fire

Jiandong Gate, 10,000 killed;

Swallow cliff, 50,000;

Straw Gorge, 57,000;

Coal Harbour, 3,000;

Torpedo Barracks, 9,000;

Jang-shung Wharf, 10,000...

She was in the dark, imagine
how the victim will feel,

and just try to internalise the
stories she heard each day.

And during the night, she was
actually sitting in a room

surrounded by the pictures,
she couldn't see,

the maps on the wall, and try
to imagine she was there.

It could be said that at that time

Nanjing was in a cloud of darkness

Japanese soldiers did whatever they wished
within Nanjing

They killed citizens at will

raped women as they pleased

When the Japanese came

I was only nine years old

I looked quite pretty then

They would take away 3 or 4 kids at one time

young girls

The Japanese would take them into the hay shed

and for a long time they would not come out

Then we'd hear little girls screaming and crying

But we didn't understand what was happening

They would rape 3 or 4 of them at a time

and then more Japanese came
and they would rape more

What they did to the
women was far worse

than what they did to the men.

They raped an estimated 20,000

to 80,000 Chinese women.

That was the single
greatest mass rape

of world history
up to that moment.

They would rape
great grandmothers

over the ages of 80,

young children under
the ages of 8.

They often turned
rape into sport.

Of course soldiers did more
than just rape women.

They violated them with rods,

bayonets, twigs, golf
sticks, even fire crackers.

They always killed burned raped
gang raped and looted

Senior soldiers were holding the arms and
legs of a woman

trying to see how deep her vagina was

One of them pushed a pole into her vagina

trying to see how deep it would go

The woman cried and struggled

but soldiers were holding her down

She was helpless

After the pole reached to the end

the soldier put cotton

into her vagina

poured in gasoline and set it on fire
to burn her to death

This was commonly done by soldiers

this was a method employed by those who
killed women?

One survivor told me
that he saw a soldier

pry open the legs
of a little girl,

of about nine or
ten, in the street

and violate her in front
of crowds of pedestrians

before splitting her head
in two with a sword.

After I woke up

I crawled over my grandparents' bodies

and slowly made it outside

When I saw my sister

she no longer had any clothes on

They were all torn off

no pants no clothes

My second eldest sister laid on the bed
with no clothes on either

Outside the room I saw my dead mother

with no clothes on

Another one of my little sisters was also dead in the courtyard

Our four neighbours were all dead as well

Finally when I came to

all Japanese had left

There are about 20 of them?

Yes 20

Finally, when I came to,

all Japanese had left.

- There are about 20
of them? - Yes, 20.

And, uh, I found my...

older sister lying on the table.

- How old was she?
- About 15 years old.

without any clothes on

and with blood beside her.

- Had she been raped? - Yes.

And another sister was
lying dead on the bed,

also without any clothes on.

- How old was she?
- And, uh, 14 years old.

Both of them were dead.

A few foreigners came to my house

to take pictures

They took many many pictures

it was the American who took pictures

At that time in year 1937 I was in so much sorrow

and from then on my tears would not dry

from then on my tears would not stop

My two elder sisters were raped by them

they were tortured to death

At that time I was in such grief so much sorrow

After the Japanese arm invaded Nanjing

They forced approximately 20,000
Chinese women

into acts of sexual violence

After sexual disease proliferated
within the Japanese army

the Japanese government decided to
establish "comfort centers"

Of these some were seized by force

some were deceived and tricked

The youngest were only 14 or 15 years old

According to the testimonies of
these women they had to

in one day

service at least four to six

Japanese soldiers

The prettier ones

would sometimes have to serve
10 to 20 Japanese soldiers

I found an old woman named Lei Gui Ying

who was tricked into a Japanese army's
comfort centre

There was a Japanese woman

thought I was going to look after her baby

One time the Japanese came looking
for comfort women

but there were no women around

I was about 15 or 16 years old then

so the Japanese woman made
me take their place

She couldn't find anyone so she grabbed me

They pinned me down on the bed and
then forced me to sleep with them

I resisted but it was useless I was small

I couldn't fight them off

In that Japanese place I was ravaged

That was the situation

She could get
extremely involved,

she could visualize
things very well.

It was so much about others,
about wanting to put herself

in other people's shoes and
really understand situations

and people... intellectually
and also on an emotional level.

I felt like a time traveller
at times because...

here would be somebody
who had fought off,

let's say, three men
who tried to rape her

and I saw pictures
of her, you know,

slashed up with bayonet wounds,

and somebody who at that
time was only 19 years old.

And, when I actually
met this woman

60 years later,

I found her, you know,
this feisty old woman,

who was telling me exactly
what I had just read

a few weeks earlier
in the archives.

It was... it was just
terribly moving for me...

I suddenly felt that this is
not something that just...

affected people 60 years ago,

the massacre affects
people today... still.

In 1937

the Japanese Imperial Army invaded China

I was nine years old

I had 3 older sisters

and 3 younger brothers

My youngest brother was only a year old

Our whole family lived inside a wooden boat

so we could hide from the turmoil of war

But before we could reach the countryside

the boat sank

My father brought us to the marshes to hide

My father took my sisters to hide

in one place

while my mother took me

and my brothers to hide somewhere else

My baby brother started to cry

Why did he cry

He needed to get milk from my morn

The Japanese Imperial Army soldiers

found my mother

And they wanted to rape my mother

My mother resisted

She fought back

still carrying my little brother

carrying my one-year-old brother

Those Japanese soldiers

snatched my brother from my mother

and smashed him to death on the ground

As soon as my mother rushed over

the Japanese soldiers grabbed their guns

and fired off two shots at my mother

My mother was shot to death right there

two days later

they discovered my father

and captured him

My father was taken away by them in 1937

He never came back

Two days after they took away my father

they saw my second eldest sister

after they spotted her they snatched her

and wanted to rape her

My sister resisted she tried to fight them off

one soldier drew out his long sword

and butchered my thirteen-year-old sister

After he slashed her we saw my sister's corpse

Her head had been chopped into two halves

From then on it was just me and my fifth brother

The two of us We cried every day

What struck me was, not
only did these survivors have to

live with these terrible,
physical and psychic scars,

but most of them were dirt poor.

Poverty-stricken beyond belief.

They were crammed into
these tiny rooms.

They had nothing.

Just a little child

They took it all away

your blood, your life

your trust, your faith

Red, as the river,

looming large the gate,

darkness in your heart

I'll dedicate my life

to get your stories told.

I'll give voice
to the voiceless,

silenced for too long.

Crying out for justice,

silenced for too long.

Trust me with your pain

I'll take it as my own

I'll fight to get the truth
told

My weapon is my word.

All these stones, thousands
and thousands of them

representing the victims.

When I close my eyes I can
almost hear their screams.

When I think back

and I saw her to the taxi

I never would have thought it would be our
final farewell

Such a great regret

She immersed herself

in this history

It was as if she saw herself within this history

and actively used her feelings

to experience

Her book was not written with a pen

It was written with her heart

Yeah - oh...

No, nothing...

I have to go because I
woke up late today...

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Okay, okay. Okay, bye.

TYPING

We met each other in
a writer's group.

Her book, the "Thread
of the Silkworm",

was about to come out and, she
was very excited about that.

We just hit it off right away.

She was, even at that
point, very, very intense

and just interested
in everything.

Always asking questions.

For her, nothing was impossible.

If there was an obstacle,
it was a challenge.

It was something to be
overcome, and maybe

something that even represented
an opportunity potentially.

If the door was closed, she
would climb in the window.

When she was in the book mode,

she would just stay focused
on something forever.

I mean, she would just
get up at 12 noon,

work till 3 or 4 in the morning,

and start the whole thing
over the next day.

TYPING

In the beginning, she
really was very happy

to get the story out.

And those survivors really
trusted her very, very much.

So she really did not
want to fail them.

My father went to wash vegetables

was seen by the Japanese soldiers

They fired three shots and killed my father

He fell to the ground

My mother heard

She came out to look for him

and was hit by a gunshot too

Mama died too

She died in my father's arms

I was just eleven years old

I heard my mother die

and ran out to look

I saw a pool of blood on the ground

Their bodies were all covered with blood

Before I could cry out for my father

the Japanese soldiers shot me once

This arm was hit the bone was broken

My body was burning with blisters

Under my armpit all that was left of
my clothes were strips

Blood was coming out of my mouth

I was in between life and death

My grandfather was beaten his head split open

even the blood from his actual brain
seemed to gush out

They found my aunt

She was seven months pregnant

They dragged her out to rape her

My poor aunt begged them to have mercy

But no

kept dragging

My aunt cried out "Help me!"

And auntie was then gang-raped by them
by the five of them

That night

she started to hemorrhage

The baby went with each drop of blood

and so the baby died

My aunt burned with a high fever that night

She died too

Two of the Japanese soldiers lifted their rifles

and grouped all of us together

They picked people out of the group
with their rifles

The people they picked

were all the elderly

the women and the children

I was one of the children

Then young men were taken away

The next day

everyone was out in the streets

Asking each other the same question

'Has your son returned yet?"

or"Has your husband returned yet?"

That's what they asked each other

But nobody knew

They had the no answers
Nobody returned home

By the pond

the dead were sprawled everywhere

All dead people

Their hands were tied at the
back chained together

And they were kneeling

This was so

when the soldiers shot them in the back

They would fall on each other

They were not able to run and
jump in the river

We arrived at East Gate Riverside Bridge?

which had been destroyed by

the bombing

It was winter time and the water
was shallow

How were we going to cross the river?

This was the only way to get to Shang
Xin River

We had to cross the river

Then we saw that there was a huge amount
of bodies in the river

forming a path to cross the river

I believe this was created by the Japanese

as they forced groups of Chinese people there

and made this 'path'

Wooden boards were laid on top of the corpses

and I walked across the river with my grandmother

On both sides all you could see were heads and fee

heads and feet

and that's how we crossed the river

I remember sometimes

just having a physical reaction

to the atrocities that
were on my word processor.

I remember on various
occasions I started...

you know, trembling convulsively

and not being able to stop.

And then it would take some
time before I stopped shaking.

And also I noticed tremendous
hair loss at the time,

you know, like just
patches of hair...

disappearing.

One day I remember vividly,

she called, she seems
very dark, in the mood.

I can see she's very unhappy
and depressed... Sad.

I said, "Are you sure you really

want to continue to
write this book?"

because as a mother, I always
worry about her health.

And she said, "Yes, I have to.

Even that bad, I
have to continue."

She said, "Look,
those survivors,

no one seems to pay
attention to them.

I'm the one who has
to make this atrocity

known to the world.

And thinking about
what they go through,

what I'm going through
is nothing, you know.

So I have to finish it."

What was really chilling for me

was to discover that
many of these atrocities

were committed not by
people who were diabolical,

serial types by nature,

but by people who were
very ordinary citizens.

I still have a problem
thinking about it

and talking about it sometimes.

The scars for me run pretty deep

because it's really shaken
my fundamental belief

that human (beings) are basically
good at heart.

I mean, I can never entirely
believe that again.

For the first three months
after joining the Japanese army

we were slapped when we woke up

slapped until we went to bed

slapped when we got up late

slapped if we didn't eat our meals properly

slapped when our behaviours were
not acceptable

and slapped when our buttons were off

Thus we were trained to acquire
the spirit of soldiers

That was how we were trained

They were treated like dirt,
they were the lowest of the low,

and suddenly, here they are
in the capital of China

where they are more powerful

than the "Lords of
Creation" for that city.

It's easy to see how
all those months,

or a lifetime perhaps,

of pent-up frustration

could explode in
uncontrollable violence

in Nanking.

When we entered a village

senior soldiers brought farmers
and tied them to trees

We lined up in one vertical line

about ten metres away

facing the farmers

'No 1 charge!"

The first one charged and stabbed the farmer

But the blade has this much width

which doesn't go in with the first stab

It didn't go into the body

and the bayonet slipped in his hand

Only this much went in

The Chinese opened his eyes wide and spit

Then the senior soldier said " Try again "

The soldier tried again

However killing a person is not easy

Then the senior soldier said
"Watch me closely I'll show you "

The senior soldier charged

and turned the bayonet by ninety degrees

which made the width of the blade thin enough

to easily go right through the ribs

He taught us the trick

and we tried with easy success

This was how we got trained to kill men

The Japanese were certainly

inculcated for violence

and they were taught to believe
that the Chinese were subhuman
in relation to them.

In fact, when you look
at some of the diaries

of Japanese soldiers at the time

you'll see that they
refer to the Chinese as,

you know, as ants,

or as something of
less value than pigs,

or sheep.

We used to call the Chinese "Chankoro Chankoro"

and regarded them as an inferior race

We thought Japanese were superior

We didn't think we were doing anything bad

We did what we did for the Emperor

Japan and the Japanese people

Therefore we thought what we
were doing was good

It was easy for the Japanese
soldier to take Chinese life

because he didn't even
value his own life.

Next to the emperor,

all human life was
considered meaningless.

I spoke with one Japanese
soldier said to me

that he was taught that duty
was as weighty as a mountain

compared to his own life which was
instead as "light as a feather",

and that the greatest honour
for a Japanese soldier

was to come home a dead
martyr for the emperor.

She wanted the process by which
people are trained to see

other people as less than
human to be revealed,

and Iris was cognizant that
it's extremely easy to do.

And she wanted this event
recorded because you don't know

who, in some future time
in some other country,

reads this book and says,

"No, not me. I'm not
gonna let this happen

in my country or in my
place or in my town."

People are always arguing
about the numbers of dead.

They say it's 140,000, 300,000

but that's not even the point

because what we do know for sure

is many more would have died if
that small group of Westerners

had not stayed behind and set
up that 2 and a half square-mile

safe haven in the
middle of Nanking.

I realized this was a story with
heroes as well as villains.

The most fascinating of all,
I think, was John Rabe.

He was the head of the
Safety Zone Committee.

He was a German businessman
and, ironically...

a supposed "Nazi"... a "Nazi" humanitarian.

He would go throughout the city

wearing his swastika armband

and the Japanese actually
respected the Germans

more than the Americans

because they had a relationship
with Germany at the time.

And often he would drive
through the city,

or walk through the city

and he would try
to stop atrocities

that were in progress.

He gave refuge to over 600
Chinese in his own house

and for days would go sleepless,

ever vigilant of the
constant threat

of marauding Japanese
soldiers looking for women.

He and the other Westerners
would risk their lives

to collect and bring in food to
the 200,000 in the safety zone.

He also constantly petitioned
the Japanese embassy in Nanking

to stop the raping
and murdering.

Consequently, the people
of Nanking called him

the Living "God".

Rabe returned to Germany
in February 1938

after the worst of the
massacre was over,

and then he just vanished.

I could never get his
story out of my mind,

so I decided to find out
what happened to him.

Finally, she located John
Rabe's granddaughter,

Ursula Reinhardt, and
then she wrote to her

and Reinhardt told
her there's a diary.

And then Iris is so excited

and I think I remember she
called me immediately,

"You know," she said,

"I not only found John
Rabe, and he had a diary!"

I tracked down the descendants
of John Rabe in Germany

and learned that he had
kept a 2,000-page diary

of the massacre;

a diary, which on
various occasions,

the family had actually
considered tossing out,

because the contents were too
painful for them to read.

Ursula told me that when
he returned from Nanking,

he went around Berlin giving a
series of public lectures, and

even sent Adolph Hitler

a detailed report
about the slaughter.

A few days later, the Gestapo
showed up at his house

and Rabe was told to never
talk about Nanking ever again.

After the war, because of
his Nazi Party membership,

the allies would not
give him a work permit.

So to survive, he sold his
treasured Chinese artefacts

and all his possessions

until his family was reduced
to living off acorn soup.

A letter from Chinese
people arrived

arrived and told him
how they adored him,

how he had saved Chinese people,

and they gathered money and
sent care parcels to John Rabe.

Unfortunately, by then
Rabe as a very sick man

and a few years later, in
1950, he died of a stroke.

It's really hard to
discredit the Rabe diaries.

His evidence is far
too powerful and

he can't be discredited anyway.

I mean, he is a third-party
witness to what happened.

He was there on the scene,

so how do you deny his reports?

In December of 1937,

Japanese troops invaded the
city of Nanking, China.

Now after 60 years, the story
of what took place there

has been written
about in a new book

called "The Rape of Nanking".

It was written by Iris Chang

and we're pleased to have her
here on this broadcast...

- ...this evening. - Thank you.

First printing is
about 2,500 copies.

It turns out a lot of people,
especially the oriental,

the Chinese, want
to buy that book

and they just couldn't find
the books in the book store.

Actually, the biggest help
came from her community

because they started
talking to Basic Books.

They said, "This is outrageous

...And they're Irises!
Oh, beautiful.

Iris came along when we
almost lost hope to bring

the Massacre of Nanking to
the attention of the world,

particularly in the
Western world.

And I immediately offered to
promote Iris's book in Canada

provided that I could
buy 2,000 of the books.

This chapter of history is so
important to every Chinese

people's heart, especially,
starting from the 80s.

The Japanese ultra-nationalists,

they start to, you know,
deny this chapter of history

or deny the atrocities.

So they really feel that Iris
is helping them to express their

feelings, their thoughts, and,
and their sense of injustice.

The 60th anniversary of
the Rape of Nanking,

we organized a
commemorative concert

and every seat was filled.

And Iris was surprised
at the turnout.

They came to talk to Iris
and also to discuss how to

bring this knowledge to
the rest of the world.

What happened when
Iris' book came out

was that so many other
families like mine,

who had basically been suffering

in silence like my father
had, alone and isolated,

saw that here was this book

that declared how many hundreds
of thousands of people

had experienced it.

It lent a human perspective to
what they had suffered.

The reviews started to pour in,

and everybody saw this
was a major book.

A typical book tour
lasts two weeks -

a great book tour
lasts two months -

she did a book tour
for over a year.

It was unheard of.

We kept extending it and
extending it and extending it.

That's how long the
interest sustained itself.

There's a much more important
story here than just

the horrible ways in which
people were massacred.

I feel very fortunate that
the "Rape of Nanking"

did become a best-seller.

I didn't want this story
to just disappear,

I didn't want all those
thousands of people's lives

to vanish into oblivion.
That's why I wrote it.

What really bothered me was
that powerful forces out there

in Japan wanted the
story to go away.

I just felt it was
insulting to the victims,

and I think that
individuals have to fight

to prevent these acts of
genocide from happening,

and then being forgotten.

If you look at the
title of her book,

'The Forgotten Holocaust',
that's how people felt.

It's a tremendous loss
that was forgotten.

As you point out, there were
more people killed in Nanking...

than in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki combined,

and yet we have amnesia about...

about Nanking. Why?

Well, I think the Cold War is
the main reason why we have

this worldwide amnesia
on the subject.

After 1949,

neither the People's
Republic of China

nor the Republic
of China in Taiwan

wanted to push the Japanese
for reparations or an apology

because both of them,
ironically, now needed Japan

as an ally against each other,

and they needed Japan's
economic and political support.

To this day I think

there was a reluctance on the
part of both governments

to broach the subject with Japan?

I think that Iris' book stirred
up a hornet's nest here

I think that people from
the revisionists' school

want to minimize or deny

Japanese wartime excesses
were provoked by it

There's a real range of opinion here

Nanjing has become a very important
and powerful symbol

of what Japan did to China

that ranges from total denial

it never happened

it's a pure fabrication of Chinese
propagandists

to yes lots of bad things happened

but those sorts of things tend to happen
in war

to what is often called the massacre
school

which are people who actually are doing

excellent research about

what went on in Nanjing and detailing
the extent of the atrocities

particularly against non-combatants?

It was in the early '80s

that Japanese right-wing nationalists
started to lash out

at those in the massacre school?

Some of those individuals in Japan
courageous individuals

have face ostracism and even
death threats

and even assassination attempts

For example a few years ago

the mayor of Nagasaki was shot
in the chest

merely for stating his belief that

Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibility
for World War Two

Katsuich Honda a popular journalist and author

wrote detailed accounts of the atrocities

and because of death threats

has worn a wig and dark glasses in public ever since?

I wrote a series of reports called
"Travelling in China"

interviewing survivors who had memories
of Nanjing

That was my main focus

I've received some death threats

not only at work but also at home

even at the elementary school my kids
were attending

I felt in danger

so we moved and our address has been
unlisted since?

She received some
very ugly hate mail.

For that reason she kept
her address private,

I never even had her
private phone number.

I emailed her on everything.
I never had address.

She was concerned about safety,

but she certainly
wasn't going to stop.

And yet there are
people in Japan -

prominent businessmen,
politicians, academics -

so not just the lunatic fringe

who say that the whole
thing is a lie,

that the massacre
never happened.

It's incredible.

Nanking... no ma'am,

we did not commit
any massacre there

in 1937.

- None? - That was fabricated,

a complete fabrication,
by the Chinese.

- You don't think
eyewitness testimonies,

Japanese soldiers' diaries...

- and film footage
and international...

Oh, those film footage were...

made up by the Nationalist
Chinese Propaganda Ministry.

Unfortunately,

a mountain of evidence
on the Nanking Massacre,

including thousands
of archival materials

in four different languages,

as well as photographic and
motion picture evidence

and widespread news coverage,

has not deterred these
Japanese extremists

from dismissing it all as
propaganda or fake evidence.

We may have killed
a a few thousand,

but certainly not in the order
of 100,000, 200,000 or 300,000.

Nobody was out there
with their calculator,

you know -- click, click, click,

that many people died, oh,
that many people were raped.

I mean, nobody will
ever know, so...

if the debate is always fixated
on getting the right number,

and you can't say anything
until you get the right number,

the debate will
never go forward.

And I think when people see
interviews with survivors,

or hear interviews with
them, they suddenly realise

this did happen. It cannot
be denied any longer.

We screamed "Don't stab my mother!"

But the Japanese soldier wouldn't listen

My mother was stabbed

and my brother fell on the ground

'Waaahhh!" he cried

The soldier with his bayonet

stabbed him in the buttocks

and flung him far away

I saw him tossed really far

and then drop to the ground with a thud

My baby brother was crying loudly

I ran over

and threw myself on him and said

'Don't cry don't cry I'll protect you"

I laid on top of him

My older sister threw herself

against the Jap crying

"Don't stab my morn "

but he used his bayonet to stab my sister

stabbed my sister too

The soldier started to stab

my little brothers

Every one one after another was
stabbed to death by him

I screamed and cried out loudly

'Don't stab my mamma!
Don't stab my mamma!"

I screamed for my brothers to leave

but they couldn't

In the end I fainted?

I went to the pile of corpses

there was blood everywhere

I stepped over the dead corpses

I walked toward the sounds of crying

And I saw both sides were full of dead bodies

And my baby brother was crawling forward?

I lifted him up and I saw blood on his body

dripping to the ground turning into ice

because that day was especially cold

I carefully brought him

to mama

and placed him at mama's side

When my mama saw my brother
she struggled

to tear open her clothes

so she could nurse my brother

My brother crawled to mama

and suckled hungrily

My little brother was just a baby

he only knew to feed

While he was nursing

when mama breathed

her wounds bubbled with blood

When I saw that it made me very sad

So then I shook with all my might

crying "Mama wake up wake up"

I shook her but she wouldn't wake up anymore

They were trained.

How do you mean trained?

Oh, by, the Chinese authority
to say those lines.

They were given these stories?

Yes.

I looked into the
survivors' eyes

and I heard their stories.

For people to say
they've made it all up,

that's just unbelievable.

The Japanese should listen
to their own soldiers

and they should look into

the eyes of the
survivors themselves...

because this mindset
is exactly what led

to the massacre in
the first place.

She was arguing or she would get
angry, she'd get emotional.

Not because of a personal
attack, but because they deny.

Why people don't want
to face the truth?

The problem is, is that the
conservative political elite

more or less tries to promote
a collective amnesia, and so

they have been whitewashing
this history for decades.

Japan needs to make
a dramatic gesture

that shows that it
takes responsibility

for what happened,

acknowledges the extent
of those atrocities,

and is committed to continue
to teach about those,

to make sure that this
is not forgotten.

And my feeling is the
revisionists are

shooting themselves in the foot.

The more that they try to deny,

minimize, shift responsibility,

the more of a backlash
their attracting.

And this isn't just
from overseas,

it's from within Japan as well.

In recent years,

a multi-ethnic,
grassroots movement

has emerged internationally

to combat these efforts
to rewrite history,

a movement that includes...

not only the Chinese, the
Koreans, the Filipinos,

leading members of the
Jewish community,

but also many
Japanese-Americans,

Japanese-Canadians and
Japanese nationals;

who recognize that
human rights issues

transcend those of
nationality and ethnicity.

Her next book was "The
Chinese in America".

She told me numerous times
she considered that

sort of a holiday project,

a vacation after all of the
atrocities of Nanking.

Emotionally it was a little
bit easier on her, so I think

on several levels she felt
more ready to have the family,

and also that it was just time.

She was over the moon
when Christopher came.

And she seemed to me throughout
the period of "Rape of Nanking"

and well into the period of
"The Chinese in America"

focused on the future,
thinking about new projects,

happy with her family life,

happy with the increasing
visibility of the

Chinese-American organizations
that she cared about greatly.

ARCHIVE RADIO NEWS

Research for my
fourth book started

with an oral history
project on Bataan POWs.

It was an American
veteran who wrote

and asked me to
tell their stories.

The same day the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbour,

they also attacked
the Philippines,

and about 10,000 U.S.

and 70,000 Filipino soldiers
were forced to surrender,

and that led to what
became known as...

as the Bataan Death March.

MUSIC

When we do these interviews
and talk to these veterans,

it's difficult, it's difficult
to hear their stories,

and to read the accounts...

of what these men went through
and what they experienced.

You walk away with...

with these thoughts
sort of burdening you.

I could only imagine...

that after 11 months of again
dealing with this topic

and hearing these
stories over and over

that that must have been
a tremendous weight,

a tremendous emotional burden.

I think she took it on
because she believed

the story needed to be told.

She saw herself as a facilitator
for those who had been

muted by others, by, those
in authority, by those

who had an interest in not
hearing these stories be told.

And justice for all
means justice for all,

and she was not looking
for justice for Chinese

or for the victims of
the Nanking Massacre.

She was looking for
justice for all.

You know, her experience
with what she learned

writing "The Rape of Nanking",

she was afraid of concentrated
power in government,

and so some of the things
that the Bush Administration

was doing just
complete set her off.

I mean, she would react
very strongly to that.

You know, I lie awake
at night with...

the voices of the
Bataan survivors going

round and round in my head...

just like Nanking.

The voices are different,

the details are different,

the language is different,

but the story is the same.

But these men,

just like the people in Nanking
poured their hearts out to me,

somebody had to listen,

to record and validate
their experience

by making it public.

I couldn't turn away,

just like I couldn't
turn away before.

...And I also think
it's important

to remember these stories,

to remind us that no matter how
civilized we think we are,

it doesn't take much for
us to get to the point

where we can massacre each other
without a second thought.

And in the end, I'm...

I'm left with one question -

when will the madness end?

And, sometimes she
didn't tell us as much,

she just keep to herself,
working all the time.

At that time she seemed...

she was complaining
that she couldn't eat,

she couldn't sleep.

Just it seemed like it was worse
than it have ever been before.

We noticed that she
is very exhausted

and that's how I feel
her health go down.

And she couldn't eat
very well either.

She didn't have much appetite

and couldn't sleep well

and, of course, we
are very concerned.

She had a baby, you know,

she already had a
fourth book to write,

and all the other
things, you know.

And somehow it just
was too much for her.

She was going on a research tour

and she was getting
ready for that.

She wasn't sleeping during
the day, she was up all day,

and all night,

and she was up all
day, and all night,

so she was probably up
for 3 or 4 days straight

before she went on the trip.

She felt she just had to get
out there and interview

as many of these
survivors as she could

as quickly as possible,

that time was against
them and against her.

One Monday I checked my
messages on the voice mail,

and there was a call that said,

"It's me," -- you know, no
name, but I knew who it was --

"Help. I'm in Kentucky at
this number. Help me."

And, I called the number

and it was a hotel, and they...

all they told me was that
Iris had checked out.

She physically broke down in
August when during the trip

she was interviewing survivors
of the Bataan Death March.

It's only three months,

so it happened very fast.

Yes, we really had
a lot of questions

we couldn't answer.

I was up there twice after
her collapse in Kentucky

Kentucky and, you know, both
times she was very flat.

I think her drive, you
know, her optimism,

all of those defining
characteristics,

it was just...

...You know, it was like
she was suddenly flat

whereas before she was just
a vibrant ball of energy.

After she had her
breakdown, she wasn't...

she depressed, and then the
medicine that she was given

made her even more sluggish.

They thought it would
be a long, long time

before she was, you
know, back to normal.

Or not... probably never
back to normal.

And she knew she wasn't
herself, you know.

On some level she did know that

and something, you know, had
profoundly changed for her.

She was very sad and
very frightened.

She was, I felt, cognisant...

very cognisant of losing
the person she once was.

And that Iris Chang was gone

and would never
come... No medicine,

no therapy was ever
gonna bring it back.

And she knew it.

After she died, it seems
part of me die too.

But I try to think
more positively now

because she died so young,

I think what we can
do is to continue

her unfinished work
and her dream.

You are going to find
that we live in a world

in which international law

has much less to do
with actual justice

than international
politics and money;

a world in which
those who have power

often believe that they
are above the truth.

My greatest hope is that a few
of you in this auditorium today

will actually serve as
crusaders for truth,

beauty and justice
in the future.

People like that are needed

to create a better world
for the next generation

of humankind on this planet

and to ensure the survival
of our civilization.

Please believe in
the power of one:

one person can make an enormous
difference in this world,

one person, actually
just one idea,

can start a war or end one.

You as one individual

can change millions of
lives, so think big.

Do not limit your vision

and do not ever compromise
your dreams or ideals.

MUSIC

I gave voice to
the voiceless

now I'm silencing my own.

What I've left behind

remember.

In you my spirit
lives on.

Find my light,
pass it on.

Find my light,
pass it on.