Scars of Nanking (2017) - full transcript
American missionaries struggle to save Chinese civilians from slaughter and rape at the hands of Japanese invaders and also smuggle out evidence of the infamous Nanking Massacre of 1937.
Leo.
For God's sake, Steele. Come on!
Leo.
It's open.
You can finish this on the boat.
Right.
That is if the Japs don't boob us first
like they did the Panay.
Well, I can swim. Can't you?
Get a move on, Will you?
We can file our stories in Shanghai.
Japan launches a full-scale
invasion of China in July 1937
As a part of its plan to rule all of Asia.
To take its place into the global power.
After 5 months of hard fight,
They take what was then the
capital of China, Nanking.
Mr, Simth.
Mr. Steele.
Dr.Wilson.
I was afraid I wouldn't catch you in time.
Thought you left days ago.
Bob.
The embassy tried to convince
most of us to leave on the Panay.
Good thing…we didn't, or we might be on the
bottom of the Yangtze River alongside it.
Besides Fitch here,
how many of you are crazy enough to stay?
Last count, it was 22 foreigners.
14 of us Americans.
Well, you have another chance to leave.
We have a boat waiting
to take us to the Oahu.
Smooth sailing to Shanghai
courtesy of the Us navy.
It seems I'm the last surgeon
left in Nanking. I can't leave.
But I do have a favor to ask of you.
Anything.
But make it quick.
Take this letter along with you.
It is to my family.
Good luck.
And to you.
Thanks for the lift, Mr. Fitch.
Oh God…
We can't drive through that.
{Scars of Nanking}
End of the safety zone.
When they first broke
through, I met a
Japanese officer who had
it marked on his map.
Doesn't look like those two have a map.
Come on, we are on foot.
Journalists Archibald Steele and Leslie
C Smith are trying to escape a nightmare.
For two days,
Japanese troops have been
rampaging through Nanking.
[No marks from a gun or helmet]
[Not army]
[I don't care]
[Don't kill me]
After the city fell to the Japanese Army,
The first few days were probably the worst.
In terms of the mass execution,
Random killing of civilians.
The kind of violence that has
happened in Nanchang occurs,
Which is often Personal,
Which is sadistic, In-close quatres,
Involves humiliation,
rape, and degradation.
The really interesting thing about
Nanchang is how much evidence we have,
And the evidence we have comes from
the foreigners who chose to stay.
As a foreigner,
Journalists are allowed to pass unharmed.
Japan does not want to
revoke the Western powers.
Steele and Smith make their
way to the Yangtze River.
Steele.
I didn't know if you were going to make it.
Our ride to the Oahu is waiting.
A moment later,
Journalists Archibald
Steele and Tillman Durdin
witness what happened to
the Chinese prisoners.
The Japanese may call this war.
It looks like murder to me.
And the scene on the riverfront as
I wait for the launch to the Oahu,
Was of a group of smoking chatting
Japanese officers overseeing
the massacre of the Battalion
Chinese captive troops.
They marched them out in groups
of about 15. Machinegunning them.
Japan always felt there was a
superior race than any other races.
All the Asians.
The superiority complex as nation made
them kill people they felt were inferior.
The responsibilities of
the Emperor system were
certainly the important
factor in wartime atrocities.
People did in name of the Emperor.
Let me spell it out for you.
American. American. American.
We are all Americans.
You've got to help us.
We've got to get our stories out.
Like I told you before,
You can get your stories out
when we get back to Shanghai.
But that won't be for another day.
We can still make today's
deadline if you just help us.
Listen, we might not
ever make it to Shanghai.
The Jap may make another
mistake and boob us too.
Do you know what's going on back there?
Murder.
By the thousands.
Women, children, civilians.
The world has got to know what
the Japs are doing to Nanking.
I am sorry, fellas.
But it's against the US Navy regulations
to let civilians use the radio.
Come on.
We're never going to get this guy to budge.
Yeah, right behind you.
Steele is still determined
to get his story out.
Where are you from?
Davenport, Iowa.
What do you know? I am from Chicago.
It's practically the same thing.
You and me, we've got to stick together.
Nanking, China. December 15, 1937.
“Four days in hell” would
be the most fitting way
to describe the siege
and capture of Nanking.
The last thing we saw as
we left the city was a
band of 300 Chinese being
methodically executed.
Before the wall, near the Waterfront,
where already corpses were piled knee deep.
Archibald Steele is one of the last
foreign journalists to leave Nanking.
It was a characteristic picture
of the mad of Nanking scene.
But the story of the fall of Nanking and
its brutal aftermath begins weeks earlier.
After a bloody battle to take
the financial Hub of Shanghai,
Japanese troops begin a forced March
along the Yangtze River to Nanking.
The goal,
Break the backbone of Chinese resistance.
Nanking was capital.
Once you occupy the capital,
That means you are declaring your victory.
One could say that the march
towards Nanking from Shanghai
was the series of massacres.
In many different locations.
It could be somewhere compared to the army
that faces guerrilla warfare in other wars.
Nanking is now under siege.
The Japanese commanders
allowed their soldiers to
rape, kill, loot,
torture and act with impunity.
So, when they got to Nanking,
It was already understood
by the soldiers that
they would be allowed to
do whatever they want.
Dr. Wilson.
[Should we stop?]
Is anyone hurt?
No. Sir.
Then stopping is not an option.
This will be the fastest
eye surgery in history.
Ah, there you are.
Robert Wilson is one of the younger
members of The Foreigner Community.
Given born in China.
His parents sent him back to the United
States Princeton Harvard Medical School,
So, you can almost think about
him as a doctor without Borders.
[Come on in]
Dr. Zhang.
What is it?
Dr. Wilson.
We feel we must leave Nanking.
With the capital of China, Nanking,
nearly surrounded by Japanese troops,
Doctor Robert Wilson learns
that many of the Chinese
doctors and staff at his
Hospital are leaving the city.
I am staying.
Dr. Liu.
Aren't you afraid of your personal safety?
Naturally.
But it is my duty to stay and help.
By staying behind in the Fallen City.
It's risk itself.
So, I think those Chinese
individuals, doctors, nurses
who stayed behind were
certainly very courageous.
Dr. Wilson is now the only
surgent left in Nanking.
My little shrapnel and bullets
collection are increasing daily.
I'll be able to open a respectable
museum by the end of the war.
The letter of diary in the
American missionary like Dr. Wilson
provided real-time eyewitness accounts
of what takes place in Nanking.
The situation is far worse than I thought.
From what I've heard,
the Japanese are mad as Hornets
after the fight the
Chinese put up in Shanghai.
They're looting and burning their way here.
I think we can all agree that it is
inevitable, the Japanese will take Nanking.
Perhaps, after they do,
things will calm down a bit.
We may hope so, Dr. Wilson.
But the wounded Chinese
soldiers at the train station
don't hold out much
hope for Japanese mercy.
The point is…
If I may say so…
The point is we must limit any violence
and protect the Chinese population.
I think we can all agree with that.
We'll need everyone pulling together.
Let's take a look here.
15 of the remaining foreigners
form an international
committee to establish
the safety zone.
They will protect Chinese civilians
from the invading Japanese.
It will be an area less
than 2 square miles in
compassing college campuses,
embassies and hospitals.
And eventually housing
more than 20 refugee camps.
The missionary, educators,
the doctors who stayed behind chose
to stay and not to bear
witness to history but to help.
It is essential that no Chinese Army
troops are to enter the safety zone.
If they do, it just gives the
Japanese an excuse to violate it.
But we're going to have to make
the Japanese keep the same promise.
No military personnel in the safety area.
The committee selects George Fitch, Head of
the YMCA, as its administrative director.
And the German businessman
John Rabe as chairman.
Germany was already a friend of Japan.
And they thought that having a German
who happened to be a Nazi party
member would carry more clout with
the Japanese military authorities.
Mr. Rabe is proving himself
to be quite the humanitarian.
Although I will never understand
his affection for Der Fuhrer.
When the international committee
set up the refugees Zone,
The agreement was that there would
be no Chinese soldiers allowed in it,
And that was the only chance there was
that the Japanese would respect that area.
The international Committee is
doing a splendid piece of work.
But the outcome is a
matter of grave concern.
The Japanese have definitely stated
they will not recognize the safety zone.
[Please come in]
[Welcome]
Minnie Vautrin was born in Illinois
in 1886, and she found herself in
the head of one of the best women's
colleges in Nanjing Jalen College.
I told the committee we
could only take 3,000.
It looks like we may have to double that.
We will use the hallway.
Even outside.
We will put them somewhere, Miss Hua.
She felt a responsibility for the
women and girls I had already heard of
the reports of Japanese troops Behavior
as they were approaching Nanjing.
The ambassy people have
now asked us to leave
very politely on two
different occasions.
I personally feel that I can't leave.
Men are not asked to desert
their ships when in danger.
And women are not asked
to leave their children.
The missionaries consider
themselves part of the community.
They felt such a responsibility
to the people whom
they have relationships,
and they wanted to stay.
[What's wrong, Mr. Chen?]
[It is happening!]
[The Chinese army is leaving the city]
[Everyone is running]
[Soldiers are throwing away their guns]
[Some drown trying to cross the river]
[Fires everywhere!]
[They say the Japanese]
[Will enter Nanking tomorrow]
Nanking falls on December 13, 1937.
Japanese troops immediately
began their rampaging of terror.
American Missionary John Magee
starts to film what he sees.
He uses his 16mm Bell &
Howell camera the church
sent to him to record
charitable activities.
John Magee was an Episcopal Minister,
who had been born in Pittsburg.
He had gone to Yale Divinity School.
The Board of Foreign
Missions sent him to China.
The film footage of John
Magee is indispensable.
Not only did he film
inside the refugee camps.
He filmed outside at great peril.
If John Magee were caught
filming by a Japanese Officer,
the chances are he would
have been beheaded.
And he would have been left there and
the Japanese would have taken his camera.
In the chaos when the city fell,
Some Chinese soldiers put
down their uniform and mingled
into the civilian population
in the safety zone.
The Japanese military used this
pretext to cast a very wide net.
Something is happening.
[Where are the Chinese soldiers?]
[We know you are here!]
Wait!
Who is in command here? Who is in charge?
I am in command.
You speak English. Terrific.
This is an American University.
American property.
You saw the flag?
This is also inside the
international safety zone.
I know Chinese Soldiers are here.
I can assure you that any men
here are completely harmless.
Civilians.
We will see.
[I know Chinese soldiers are hiding here.]
[I will give you one minute.]
[If you stand up and surrender, ]
[I will not kill you.]
[If you don't, ]
[I will kill you all!]
[One minute!]
[Hurry, take them all.]
Wait!
Wait!!
These are not soldiers. They work here.
This one is 60 years old. No Soldier.
We will decide. Get back!
Based on eyewitness accounts,
We know that many of the
civilians were taken away,
Were later executed by
the Japanese military.
Young men were tied up with
wire and led to the river.
Lined up and shot
And the river would be full of corpses
It was quite widespread to use POW's
as bayonet practice for new solders.
To kill a human being is a big
psychological threshold to cross.
And we see that Japanese Officers did use
such practice to “stiffen” their soldiers,
so to speak.
Soon after the Japanese enter the city
an eight-year-old girl
leads Magee to her home.
[Is this where it happened?]
[At 9 or 10 in the morning]
[Japanese soldiers broke into our house]
[My dad opened the gate]
[He took a few steps]
[The Japanese caught him
and shot him to death]
Good lord.
The neighbors have taken the bodies of Xia
Shuqin's family and other victims outside.
Shuqin's mother and sister
are raped before being murder.
In all, 7 of her family members
are killed in front of her.
She, herself, is bayonetted.
But survives.
[You tell me to remember but not cry]
[How can I not cry?]
[7 of my family died]
[Not just 1 person]
The horror of the last week is beyond
anything I have ever experienced.
I never dreamed that the Japanese
soldiers were such savages.
It has been a week of murder and rape.
They not only killed every
prisoner they could find,
But also, a vast number of
ordinary citizens of all ages.
Many of them were shot down like the
hunting of rabbits in the streets.
There are dead bodies all over the city.
But the most horrible thing
now is the raping of the women.
Which has been going on in the most
shameless way that I have ever known.
The streets are full of
men searching for women.
Within days of the occupation.
Thousands of Nanking
surviving citizens seek
refuge in the
international safety zone.
I am sorry, only women under
50 years old and girls.
I am so sorry. Please tell them, Mrs. Tsen.
[We have no choice.]
[I am so sorry]
Never shall I forget the faces of the
younger girls as they streamed in.
Most of them were parting from their
fathers or husbands at the gate.
The had disguised themselves
in every way possible.
Many had cut their hair
most of them had blackened their faces.
[Don't worry]
[We will take care of them]
We will protect them.
[I promise]
The night of December 17
none of us shall ever forget for it is
burned in our memories by suffering.
This is an American school.
American school!
They refused to believe me when
I said there were no soldiers.
Only women and children.
[Help me]
[Help me]
They made us feel like they
were searching for soldiers.
But as a matter of fact
they were searching for
young women and girls.
Never shall I forget that scene.
The people kneeing
Mrs. Tsen and I standing.
The rattling of the leaves
the moaning if the wind.
The cry of the women being led out.
The rape of Nanking is known
by the name rape because of the
astonishing numbers of public rapes
the Japanese Soldiers perpetuated.
It's in the missionary diaries.
The Japanese soldiers are climbing
into the refugee camps to rape
in front of the missionaries
that are trying to protect them.
The rapes of sisters, mothers, children…
Repeated rapes until the
child and mother was dead.
Is why this massacre bears the name.
I think now that I may
have saved those girls.
But at the time, it did not seem possible.
[Help me]
[Help me]
These foreigners by standing
between the Japanese and the
potential Chinese victims did
put themselves into harm's way.
This is the situation
when people like Minnie
Vautrin were threatened
by the Japanese soldiers.
This girl,
she decided to resist her rapist.
You can see what it got her.
More than 20 bayonet wounds.
She is luckier than most.
She will survive.
The Japanese Troops would just slice
open people and leave them to die,
And so, Robert Wilson for example did a lot
of surgery and he did a lot of sewing up.
And these events can be corroborated by
the film footage that John Magee took.
When did you last get some sleep, Bob?
Maybe 20 hours ago.
I try to catch a nap here and there.
When the Japanese don't come looking
for women or something to steal.
I used to try to be polite
when I threw them out.
But now I just give them the same
cold fishy stare that they give me.
What good does it do the filming
that if no one ever sees it?
I think there were at least one
hundred Chinese on staff there.
Nurses and technicians and so forth,
But he was the only qualified
surgeon left in the city
and so he was just absolutely
overwhelmed by work.
[Japanese soldiers are here!]
[Where?]
[Nurse dormitory.]
Stop it!
What do you think you are doing? Stop it!
[Mind your own business or
I will kill you, American.]
[I am an imperial soldier.]
This is a hospital.
You have no business here. Get out now.
[Chinese soldier here; We
search Chinese soldier.]
That is not going to work with me, friend.
There are no Chinese soldiers here.
You must leave now. Go.
[I said do not interfere.]
[I will kill you now.]
You may want to ask your friend.
How smart he thinks it is
for you to kill an American.
You may ask him. What punishment
he thinks you might receive.
[If you kill a foreigner,
we will be in trouble.]
[We'll find girls somewhere else.]
The used the women as sort
of a “comfort.” You know?
And then they killed the women.
They were imperial power.
Young! These guys were young!
They no intellectual training.
There were like animals.
They were trained as animalistic.
So, when commander says: “Kill
all of them!” They don't care.
Men. Women. Children. Burn!
Over half the city is burned.
Huge fires are set in
every business section.
Yesterday before going home for
supply, I counted 12 fires.
If it weren't for the way the international
Committee had gathered rice beforehand,
And done what it could to
protect the population,
There would already be
a first-class famine.
And the slaughter would have been
considerably greater than it has been.
In total, within the
perimeter of the safety zone.
There were about 250,000 people.
So, it was very packed.
And they increasingly had trouble
getting in enough food or sanitary
conditions for all of these
people within such a small space.
George Fitch, in charge of logistics
struggles to make it all work.
George Fitch was an
established member of the YMCA.
He was an established Missionary.
He had been born in China in the 1880s.
He like other missionary
kids had been sent to the
United States for College
and Divinity School.
He was right smack in the middle of it all,
And I think they never knew when one of the
soldiers when turn on them more violently.
Complete anarchy has reigned for 10 days.
It has been hell on earth.
To have to stand by and watch
while even the very poor
are having their last
possession taken from them.
While thousands of disarmed soldiers
who had sought sanctuary with you,
Together with many hundreds of innocent
civilians are taken out before your eyes.
And shot or used for bayonet practice.
And to stand by and do nothing while
your flag is taken down and insulted.
Not once but a dozen times.
And then to watch the city
that you've come to love.
Deliberately and
systematically burned by fires.
This is a hell I could
never before have envisaged.
Every day we call at the Japanese
embassy and present our protests.
Our appeals, our authenticated
reports of violence and crime.
Mr. Fukuda, you can't honestly pretend
that you don't know what's going on.
We have written to you virtually
every day documenting the
crime and mayhem perpetrated
by your imperial troops.
You have in your hand a
letter of pretest signed
by all 22 remaining
foreigners in Nanking.
We are met with suave Japanese courtesy
but actually the officials
there are powerless.
This is a military matter.
The army is in charge of this.
So, you have no influence
over your military.
They just do what they want.
You had the opportunity to show the world
the honor of the imperial Japanese army.
Yet, you've just demonstrated
the exact opposite.
We've been branded as a load of liars.
The Japanese embassy people tell people
that everything we say is imagination.
That might be a lot truer
if I were not a surgeon.
And have to patch up the
results of their excesses.
By the end of December 1937,
The Japanese order all civilians to
register for “good citizens papers.”
By late January 1938,
they force all Chinese to leave the
safety zone and return to their homes.
The zone is officially closed.
But the killing continues.
We need to find a better
way to get the word out.
The world needs to know
what Japan has done here.
People will only believe it if
they see it with their own eyes.
Many International Committee
members circulate letters
in the United States to
bring attention to Nanking.
But so far, nothing is being
done to stop the Japanese.
We need to get Father Magee's film
out of here and back to the West.
How? None of us can get
permission to leave.
And the risk of carrying
the films alone is just…
I can't even get the films developed.
It's too dangerous.
These Missionaries primarily
were not allowed out of the
city at this point because
they really knew too much.
The Japanese would not
be keen on letting them
go out and talk about
what they had witnessed.
Bring the negatives to my place next week.
I might have a way.
You really think they won't search you?
They may check my luggage, but not me.
I've got a special permit now.
George Fitch finds a way to smuggle the
evidence of the massacre out of Nanking.
By sewing Father Magee's films
into the lining of his overcoat.
In order to be allowed to leave Nanking,
Fitch arranges to receive
a telegram from a colleague
in Shanghai saying he is
urgently needed there.
It works!
No one could protect the Missionaries.
These people are aware of the
risks they are personally facing.
What kind of train are you getting?
It's a Japanese troop train, actually.
I'll pray for you.
I'll need it.
On January 18, 1938 at 06:40 am,
George Fitch, Director of the International
Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.
Attempts to board a Japanese
Troop Train bound for Shanghai.
[You]
[Your papers]
I was crowded in with about
as unsavory a crowd of
soldiers as one could imagine
in a third-class coach.
A bit nervous because sewed into
lining of my coat were eight
reels of 16-millimeter negatives
move film of atrocity cases.
My baggage would
undoubtedly be carefully
examined by the military
when we got to Shanghai.
[Stop]
[Open your bag]
What might happen if they
discovered these films?
Fortunately, they weren't discovered.
And as soon as I could after my arrival
I took them to the Kodak
office for processing.
They were so terrible that they
had to be seen to be believed.
George Fitch is aware that the world
Community needed to hear this story
and he swirled out of China
with Magee's film footage
and went on the lecture tour in
the United States throughout 1938.
He showed the films to the senators, to
army officials, and churches and so forth.
And tried to publicize
what was happening there.
I think it probably did have an effect
on public opinion in the United States.
The Japanese were seen as “The Wicked
Enemy” before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In Nanking, the violence begins to subside.
It stopped because there really
wasn't anybody else to kill.
There wasn't anything else to steal.
There wasn't anything else to burn down.
Many of the missionaries stayed in
Nanking through the worst of the atrocity.
But the paid the price.
The events are growing dim.
But there are a certain of them that a
lifetime will not erase from my memory.
Minnie Vautrin is not the only one hunted.
I have visited Japan a number of times.
It is a beautiful country.
How to reconcile the Japan that I have seen
and the savagery that I have seen here.
Is a problem that I have not solved yet.
George Fitch would sometimes
had amnesia or blank
out when he was trying
to give his speech.
Some people have attributed this to
the trauma that he experienced there.
Dr. Robert Wilson exhausted and suffering
from seizures return to the US in 1940.
But there is no time to rest.
He joins an Army Medical
unit and ships out again.
After World War II, Dr. Wilson, George
Fitch, and Father John Magee all play
key roles in bringing the perpetrators
of the Nanking massacre to Justice,
By providing testimony
to war crimes tribunals.
The international Military
Tribunal for the Far East
puts the number of deaths
to the hand of the Japanese.
It's over 200,000.
The Nanking war crimes tribunal
puts the number of 300,000 or more.
In the first month of Japan's
occupation of Nanking,
The number of rapes is
officially estimated it 20,000.
Ultimately, 5 Japanese Military Officers
and 1 civilian official are put to death.
In 2014, China confirmed
December 13th as the National
Memorial Day for victims
of the Nanking massacre.
In 1940 after standing in Nanking
through the worst days of the occupation,
Minnie Vautrin suffers from depression.
Her church sends her to
Indianapolis Indiana.
Several times, the Japanese soldier
threatened her life, threatened to rape her
And she stood up to them; Especially,
when the soldiers came into the compound,
And were attacking people under her care.
She made an extra effort
to protect women and girls.
Dear friends,
This process of mental
deterioration has evidently
been going on for years
without my realizing it.
[Help me]
[Help me]
On May 14, 1941, one year to
the day after she left Nanking,
Minnie Vautrin commits suicide.
Minnie vautrin mentioned more
than once in the diary that
She was writing that she felt guilty or at
fault because she couldn't help everyone.
She felt as though if only if
only I've been there for them
If only if only I've been
able to hele this person.
Then that person would have been ok.
In China; Especially in Nanking,
The names and deeds of these
foreigners who stayed behind live on.
If there were no westerners
in the fallen capital,
The situation would have been much
morse for the Chinese population.
What is knowable is the hundreds
of thousands of lives saved
By the efforts of those
who established the zones,
And tried to keep as many as
civilians safe as possible.
Equally important is that they
recorded the facts of Nanking massacre.
Today, Minnie Vautrin
revered as a living Buddha.
She is called “Kuan Yin”
Buddha, Goddess of Mercy.
6 weeks before the fall of Nanking,
Minnie writes it in her diary:
Think of the lovely coloring
of the autumn leaves,
The glimpses of purple
mountain through our trees.
All these we have.
Nanking is a place of peace,
relaxation and beauty.
Human beings have an extraordinary
capacity to simply come back.
It is not uncommon for people
to live quite happily and
peacefully in a place where
terrible things happen.
For God's sake, Steele. Come on!
Leo.
It's open.
You can finish this on the boat.
Right.
That is if the Japs don't boob us first
like they did the Panay.
Well, I can swim. Can't you?
Get a move on, Will you?
We can file our stories in Shanghai.
Japan launches a full-scale
invasion of China in July 1937
As a part of its plan to rule all of Asia.
To take its place into the global power.
After 5 months of hard fight,
They take what was then the
capital of China, Nanking.
Mr, Simth.
Mr. Steele.
Dr.Wilson.
I was afraid I wouldn't catch you in time.
Thought you left days ago.
Bob.
The embassy tried to convince
most of us to leave on the Panay.
Good thing…we didn't, or we might be on the
bottom of the Yangtze River alongside it.
Besides Fitch here,
how many of you are crazy enough to stay?
Last count, it was 22 foreigners.
14 of us Americans.
Well, you have another chance to leave.
We have a boat waiting
to take us to the Oahu.
Smooth sailing to Shanghai
courtesy of the Us navy.
It seems I'm the last surgeon
left in Nanking. I can't leave.
But I do have a favor to ask of you.
Anything.
But make it quick.
Take this letter along with you.
It is to my family.
Good luck.
And to you.
Thanks for the lift, Mr. Fitch.
Oh God…
We can't drive through that.
{Scars of Nanking}
End of the safety zone.
When they first broke
through, I met a
Japanese officer who had
it marked on his map.
Doesn't look like those two have a map.
Come on, we are on foot.
Journalists Archibald Steele and Leslie
C Smith are trying to escape a nightmare.
For two days,
Japanese troops have been
rampaging through Nanking.
[No marks from a gun or helmet]
[Not army]
[I don't care]
[Don't kill me]
After the city fell to the Japanese Army,
The first few days were probably the worst.
In terms of the mass execution,
Random killing of civilians.
The kind of violence that has
happened in Nanchang occurs,
Which is often Personal,
Which is sadistic, In-close quatres,
Involves humiliation,
rape, and degradation.
The really interesting thing about
Nanchang is how much evidence we have,
And the evidence we have comes from
the foreigners who chose to stay.
As a foreigner,
Journalists are allowed to pass unharmed.
Japan does not want to
revoke the Western powers.
Steele and Smith make their
way to the Yangtze River.
Steele.
I didn't know if you were going to make it.
Our ride to the Oahu is waiting.
A moment later,
Journalists Archibald
Steele and Tillman Durdin
witness what happened to
the Chinese prisoners.
The Japanese may call this war.
It looks like murder to me.
And the scene on the riverfront as
I wait for the launch to the Oahu,
Was of a group of smoking chatting
Japanese officers overseeing
the massacre of the Battalion
Chinese captive troops.
They marched them out in groups
of about 15. Machinegunning them.
Japan always felt there was a
superior race than any other races.
All the Asians.
The superiority complex as nation made
them kill people they felt were inferior.
The responsibilities of
the Emperor system were
certainly the important
factor in wartime atrocities.
People did in name of the Emperor.
Let me spell it out for you.
American. American. American.
We are all Americans.
You've got to help us.
We've got to get our stories out.
Like I told you before,
You can get your stories out
when we get back to Shanghai.
But that won't be for another day.
We can still make today's
deadline if you just help us.
Listen, we might not
ever make it to Shanghai.
The Jap may make another
mistake and boob us too.
Do you know what's going on back there?
Murder.
By the thousands.
Women, children, civilians.
The world has got to know what
the Japs are doing to Nanking.
I am sorry, fellas.
But it's against the US Navy regulations
to let civilians use the radio.
Come on.
We're never going to get this guy to budge.
Yeah, right behind you.
Steele is still determined
to get his story out.
Where are you from?
Davenport, Iowa.
What do you know? I am from Chicago.
It's practically the same thing.
You and me, we've got to stick together.
Nanking, China. December 15, 1937.
“Four days in hell” would
be the most fitting way
to describe the siege
and capture of Nanking.
The last thing we saw as
we left the city was a
band of 300 Chinese being
methodically executed.
Before the wall, near the Waterfront,
where already corpses were piled knee deep.
Archibald Steele is one of the last
foreign journalists to leave Nanking.
It was a characteristic picture
of the mad of Nanking scene.
But the story of the fall of Nanking and
its brutal aftermath begins weeks earlier.
After a bloody battle to take
the financial Hub of Shanghai,
Japanese troops begin a forced March
along the Yangtze River to Nanking.
The goal,
Break the backbone of Chinese resistance.
Nanking was capital.
Once you occupy the capital,
That means you are declaring your victory.
One could say that the march
towards Nanking from Shanghai
was the series of massacres.
In many different locations.
It could be somewhere compared to the army
that faces guerrilla warfare in other wars.
Nanking is now under siege.
The Japanese commanders
allowed their soldiers to
rape, kill, loot,
torture and act with impunity.
So, when they got to Nanking,
It was already understood
by the soldiers that
they would be allowed to
do whatever they want.
Dr. Wilson.
[Should we stop?]
Is anyone hurt?
No. Sir.
Then stopping is not an option.
This will be the fastest
eye surgery in history.
Ah, there you are.
Robert Wilson is one of the younger
members of The Foreigner Community.
Given born in China.
His parents sent him back to the United
States Princeton Harvard Medical School,
So, you can almost think about
him as a doctor without Borders.
[Come on in]
Dr. Zhang.
What is it?
Dr. Wilson.
We feel we must leave Nanking.
With the capital of China, Nanking,
nearly surrounded by Japanese troops,
Doctor Robert Wilson learns
that many of the Chinese
doctors and staff at his
Hospital are leaving the city.
I am staying.
Dr. Liu.
Aren't you afraid of your personal safety?
Naturally.
But it is my duty to stay and help.
By staying behind in the Fallen City.
It's risk itself.
So, I think those Chinese
individuals, doctors, nurses
who stayed behind were
certainly very courageous.
Dr. Wilson is now the only
surgent left in Nanking.
My little shrapnel and bullets
collection are increasing daily.
I'll be able to open a respectable
museum by the end of the war.
The letter of diary in the
American missionary like Dr. Wilson
provided real-time eyewitness accounts
of what takes place in Nanking.
The situation is far worse than I thought.
From what I've heard,
the Japanese are mad as Hornets
after the fight the
Chinese put up in Shanghai.
They're looting and burning their way here.
I think we can all agree that it is
inevitable, the Japanese will take Nanking.
Perhaps, after they do,
things will calm down a bit.
We may hope so, Dr. Wilson.
But the wounded Chinese
soldiers at the train station
don't hold out much
hope for Japanese mercy.
The point is…
If I may say so…
The point is we must limit any violence
and protect the Chinese population.
I think we can all agree with that.
We'll need everyone pulling together.
Let's take a look here.
15 of the remaining foreigners
form an international
committee to establish
the safety zone.
They will protect Chinese civilians
from the invading Japanese.
It will be an area less
than 2 square miles in
compassing college campuses,
embassies and hospitals.
And eventually housing
more than 20 refugee camps.
The missionary, educators,
the doctors who stayed behind chose
to stay and not to bear
witness to history but to help.
It is essential that no Chinese Army
troops are to enter the safety zone.
If they do, it just gives the
Japanese an excuse to violate it.
But we're going to have to make
the Japanese keep the same promise.
No military personnel in the safety area.
The committee selects George Fitch, Head of
the YMCA, as its administrative director.
And the German businessman
John Rabe as chairman.
Germany was already a friend of Japan.
And they thought that having a German
who happened to be a Nazi party
member would carry more clout with
the Japanese military authorities.
Mr. Rabe is proving himself
to be quite the humanitarian.
Although I will never understand
his affection for Der Fuhrer.
When the international committee
set up the refugees Zone,
The agreement was that there would
be no Chinese soldiers allowed in it,
And that was the only chance there was
that the Japanese would respect that area.
The international Committee is
doing a splendid piece of work.
But the outcome is a
matter of grave concern.
The Japanese have definitely stated
they will not recognize the safety zone.
[Please come in]
[Welcome]
Minnie Vautrin was born in Illinois
in 1886, and she found herself in
the head of one of the best women's
colleges in Nanjing Jalen College.
I told the committee we
could only take 3,000.
It looks like we may have to double that.
We will use the hallway.
Even outside.
We will put them somewhere, Miss Hua.
She felt a responsibility for the
women and girls I had already heard of
the reports of Japanese troops Behavior
as they were approaching Nanjing.
The ambassy people have
now asked us to leave
very politely on two
different occasions.
I personally feel that I can't leave.
Men are not asked to desert
their ships when in danger.
And women are not asked
to leave their children.
The missionaries consider
themselves part of the community.
They felt such a responsibility
to the people whom
they have relationships,
and they wanted to stay.
[What's wrong, Mr. Chen?]
[It is happening!]
[The Chinese army is leaving the city]
[Everyone is running]
[Soldiers are throwing away their guns]
[Some drown trying to cross the river]
[Fires everywhere!]
[They say the Japanese]
[Will enter Nanking tomorrow]
Nanking falls on December 13, 1937.
Japanese troops immediately
began their rampaging of terror.
American Missionary John Magee
starts to film what he sees.
He uses his 16mm Bell &
Howell camera the church
sent to him to record
charitable activities.
John Magee was an Episcopal Minister,
who had been born in Pittsburg.
He had gone to Yale Divinity School.
The Board of Foreign
Missions sent him to China.
The film footage of John
Magee is indispensable.
Not only did he film
inside the refugee camps.
He filmed outside at great peril.
If John Magee were caught
filming by a Japanese Officer,
the chances are he would
have been beheaded.
And he would have been left there and
the Japanese would have taken his camera.
In the chaos when the city fell,
Some Chinese soldiers put
down their uniform and mingled
into the civilian population
in the safety zone.
The Japanese military used this
pretext to cast a very wide net.
Something is happening.
[Where are the Chinese soldiers?]
[We know you are here!]
Wait!
Who is in command here? Who is in charge?
I am in command.
You speak English. Terrific.
This is an American University.
American property.
You saw the flag?
This is also inside the
international safety zone.
I know Chinese Soldiers are here.
I can assure you that any men
here are completely harmless.
Civilians.
We will see.
[I know Chinese soldiers are hiding here.]
[I will give you one minute.]
[If you stand up and surrender, ]
[I will not kill you.]
[If you don't, ]
[I will kill you all!]
[One minute!]
[Hurry, take them all.]
Wait!
Wait!!
These are not soldiers. They work here.
This one is 60 years old. No Soldier.
We will decide. Get back!
Based on eyewitness accounts,
We know that many of the
civilians were taken away,
Were later executed by
the Japanese military.
Young men were tied up with
wire and led to the river.
Lined up and shot
And the river would be full of corpses
It was quite widespread to use POW's
as bayonet practice for new solders.
To kill a human being is a big
psychological threshold to cross.
And we see that Japanese Officers did use
such practice to “stiffen” their soldiers,
so to speak.
Soon after the Japanese enter the city
an eight-year-old girl
leads Magee to her home.
[Is this where it happened?]
[At 9 or 10 in the morning]
[Japanese soldiers broke into our house]
[My dad opened the gate]
[He took a few steps]
[The Japanese caught him
and shot him to death]
Good lord.
The neighbors have taken the bodies of Xia
Shuqin's family and other victims outside.
Shuqin's mother and sister
are raped before being murder.
In all, 7 of her family members
are killed in front of her.
She, herself, is bayonetted.
But survives.
[You tell me to remember but not cry]
[How can I not cry?]
[7 of my family died]
[Not just 1 person]
The horror of the last week is beyond
anything I have ever experienced.
I never dreamed that the Japanese
soldiers were such savages.
It has been a week of murder and rape.
They not only killed every
prisoner they could find,
But also, a vast number of
ordinary citizens of all ages.
Many of them were shot down like the
hunting of rabbits in the streets.
There are dead bodies all over the city.
But the most horrible thing
now is the raping of the women.
Which has been going on in the most
shameless way that I have ever known.
The streets are full of
men searching for women.
Within days of the occupation.
Thousands of Nanking
surviving citizens seek
refuge in the
international safety zone.
I am sorry, only women under
50 years old and girls.
I am so sorry. Please tell them, Mrs. Tsen.
[We have no choice.]
[I am so sorry]
Never shall I forget the faces of the
younger girls as they streamed in.
Most of them were parting from their
fathers or husbands at the gate.
The had disguised themselves
in every way possible.
Many had cut their hair
most of them had blackened their faces.
[Don't worry]
[We will take care of them]
We will protect them.
[I promise]
The night of December 17
none of us shall ever forget for it is
burned in our memories by suffering.
This is an American school.
American school!
They refused to believe me when
I said there were no soldiers.
Only women and children.
[Help me]
[Help me]
They made us feel like they
were searching for soldiers.
But as a matter of fact
they were searching for
young women and girls.
Never shall I forget that scene.
The people kneeing
Mrs. Tsen and I standing.
The rattling of the leaves
the moaning if the wind.
The cry of the women being led out.
The rape of Nanking is known
by the name rape because of the
astonishing numbers of public rapes
the Japanese Soldiers perpetuated.
It's in the missionary diaries.
The Japanese soldiers are climbing
into the refugee camps to rape
in front of the missionaries
that are trying to protect them.
The rapes of sisters, mothers, children…
Repeated rapes until the
child and mother was dead.
Is why this massacre bears the name.
I think now that I may
have saved those girls.
But at the time, it did not seem possible.
[Help me]
[Help me]
These foreigners by standing
between the Japanese and the
potential Chinese victims did
put themselves into harm's way.
This is the situation
when people like Minnie
Vautrin were threatened
by the Japanese soldiers.
This girl,
she decided to resist her rapist.
You can see what it got her.
More than 20 bayonet wounds.
She is luckier than most.
She will survive.
The Japanese Troops would just slice
open people and leave them to die,
And so, Robert Wilson for example did a lot
of surgery and he did a lot of sewing up.
And these events can be corroborated by
the film footage that John Magee took.
When did you last get some sleep, Bob?
Maybe 20 hours ago.
I try to catch a nap here and there.
When the Japanese don't come looking
for women or something to steal.
I used to try to be polite
when I threw them out.
But now I just give them the same
cold fishy stare that they give me.
What good does it do the filming
that if no one ever sees it?
I think there were at least one
hundred Chinese on staff there.
Nurses and technicians and so forth,
But he was the only qualified
surgeon left in the city
and so he was just absolutely
overwhelmed by work.
[Japanese soldiers are here!]
[Where?]
[Nurse dormitory.]
Stop it!
What do you think you are doing? Stop it!
[Mind your own business or
I will kill you, American.]
[I am an imperial soldier.]
This is a hospital.
You have no business here. Get out now.
[Chinese soldier here; We
search Chinese soldier.]
That is not going to work with me, friend.
There are no Chinese soldiers here.
You must leave now. Go.
[I said do not interfere.]
[I will kill you now.]
You may want to ask your friend.
How smart he thinks it is
for you to kill an American.
You may ask him. What punishment
he thinks you might receive.
[If you kill a foreigner,
we will be in trouble.]
[We'll find girls somewhere else.]
The used the women as sort
of a “comfort.” You know?
And then they killed the women.
They were imperial power.
Young! These guys were young!
They no intellectual training.
There were like animals.
They were trained as animalistic.
So, when commander says: “Kill
all of them!” They don't care.
Men. Women. Children. Burn!
Over half the city is burned.
Huge fires are set in
every business section.
Yesterday before going home for
supply, I counted 12 fires.
If it weren't for the way the international
Committee had gathered rice beforehand,
And done what it could to
protect the population,
There would already be
a first-class famine.
And the slaughter would have been
considerably greater than it has been.
In total, within the
perimeter of the safety zone.
There were about 250,000 people.
So, it was very packed.
And they increasingly had trouble
getting in enough food or sanitary
conditions for all of these
people within such a small space.
George Fitch, in charge of logistics
struggles to make it all work.
George Fitch was an
established member of the YMCA.
He was an established Missionary.
He had been born in China in the 1880s.
He like other missionary
kids had been sent to the
United States for College
and Divinity School.
He was right smack in the middle of it all,
And I think they never knew when one of the
soldiers when turn on them more violently.
Complete anarchy has reigned for 10 days.
It has been hell on earth.
To have to stand by and watch
while even the very poor
are having their last
possession taken from them.
While thousands of disarmed soldiers
who had sought sanctuary with you,
Together with many hundreds of innocent
civilians are taken out before your eyes.
And shot or used for bayonet practice.
And to stand by and do nothing while
your flag is taken down and insulted.
Not once but a dozen times.
And then to watch the city
that you've come to love.
Deliberately and
systematically burned by fires.
This is a hell I could
never before have envisaged.
Every day we call at the Japanese
embassy and present our protests.
Our appeals, our authenticated
reports of violence and crime.
Mr. Fukuda, you can't honestly pretend
that you don't know what's going on.
We have written to you virtually
every day documenting the
crime and mayhem perpetrated
by your imperial troops.
You have in your hand a
letter of pretest signed
by all 22 remaining
foreigners in Nanking.
We are met with suave Japanese courtesy
but actually the officials
there are powerless.
This is a military matter.
The army is in charge of this.
So, you have no influence
over your military.
They just do what they want.
You had the opportunity to show the world
the honor of the imperial Japanese army.
Yet, you've just demonstrated
the exact opposite.
We've been branded as a load of liars.
The Japanese embassy people tell people
that everything we say is imagination.
That might be a lot truer
if I were not a surgeon.
And have to patch up the
results of their excesses.
By the end of December 1937,
The Japanese order all civilians to
register for “good citizens papers.”
By late January 1938,
they force all Chinese to leave the
safety zone and return to their homes.
The zone is officially closed.
But the killing continues.
We need to find a better
way to get the word out.
The world needs to know
what Japan has done here.
People will only believe it if
they see it with their own eyes.
Many International Committee
members circulate letters
in the United States to
bring attention to Nanking.
But so far, nothing is being
done to stop the Japanese.
We need to get Father Magee's film
out of here and back to the West.
How? None of us can get
permission to leave.
And the risk of carrying
the films alone is just…
I can't even get the films developed.
It's too dangerous.
These Missionaries primarily
were not allowed out of the
city at this point because
they really knew too much.
The Japanese would not
be keen on letting them
go out and talk about
what they had witnessed.
Bring the negatives to my place next week.
I might have a way.
You really think they won't search you?
They may check my luggage, but not me.
I've got a special permit now.
George Fitch finds a way to smuggle the
evidence of the massacre out of Nanking.
By sewing Father Magee's films
into the lining of his overcoat.
In order to be allowed to leave Nanking,
Fitch arranges to receive
a telegram from a colleague
in Shanghai saying he is
urgently needed there.
It works!
No one could protect the Missionaries.
These people are aware of the
risks they are personally facing.
What kind of train are you getting?
It's a Japanese troop train, actually.
I'll pray for you.
I'll need it.
On January 18, 1938 at 06:40 am,
George Fitch, Director of the International
Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.
Attempts to board a Japanese
Troop Train bound for Shanghai.
[You]
[Your papers]
I was crowded in with about
as unsavory a crowd of
soldiers as one could imagine
in a third-class coach.
A bit nervous because sewed into
lining of my coat were eight
reels of 16-millimeter negatives
move film of atrocity cases.
My baggage would
undoubtedly be carefully
examined by the military
when we got to Shanghai.
[Stop]
[Open your bag]
What might happen if they
discovered these films?
Fortunately, they weren't discovered.
And as soon as I could after my arrival
I took them to the Kodak
office for processing.
They were so terrible that they
had to be seen to be believed.
George Fitch is aware that the world
Community needed to hear this story
and he swirled out of China
with Magee's film footage
and went on the lecture tour in
the United States throughout 1938.
He showed the films to the senators, to
army officials, and churches and so forth.
And tried to publicize
what was happening there.
I think it probably did have an effect
on public opinion in the United States.
The Japanese were seen as “The Wicked
Enemy” before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In Nanking, the violence begins to subside.
It stopped because there really
wasn't anybody else to kill.
There wasn't anything else to steal.
There wasn't anything else to burn down.
Many of the missionaries stayed in
Nanking through the worst of the atrocity.
But the paid the price.
The events are growing dim.
But there are a certain of them that a
lifetime will not erase from my memory.
Minnie Vautrin is not the only one hunted.
I have visited Japan a number of times.
It is a beautiful country.
How to reconcile the Japan that I have seen
and the savagery that I have seen here.
Is a problem that I have not solved yet.
George Fitch would sometimes
had amnesia or blank
out when he was trying
to give his speech.
Some people have attributed this to
the trauma that he experienced there.
Dr. Robert Wilson exhausted and suffering
from seizures return to the US in 1940.
But there is no time to rest.
He joins an Army Medical
unit and ships out again.
After World War II, Dr. Wilson, George
Fitch, and Father John Magee all play
key roles in bringing the perpetrators
of the Nanking massacre to Justice,
By providing testimony
to war crimes tribunals.
The international Military
Tribunal for the Far East
puts the number of deaths
to the hand of the Japanese.
It's over 200,000.
The Nanking war crimes tribunal
puts the number of 300,000 or more.
In the first month of Japan's
occupation of Nanking,
The number of rapes is
officially estimated it 20,000.
Ultimately, 5 Japanese Military Officers
and 1 civilian official are put to death.
In 2014, China confirmed
December 13th as the National
Memorial Day for victims
of the Nanking massacre.
In 1940 after standing in Nanking
through the worst days of the occupation,
Minnie Vautrin suffers from depression.
Her church sends her to
Indianapolis Indiana.
Several times, the Japanese soldier
threatened her life, threatened to rape her
And she stood up to them; Especially,
when the soldiers came into the compound,
And were attacking people under her care.
She made an extra effort
to protect women and girls.
Dear friends,
This process of mental
deterioration has evidently
been going on for years
without my realizing it.
[Help me]
[Help me]
On May 14, 1941, one year to
the day after she left Nanking,
Minnie Vautrin commits suicide.
Minnie vautrin mentioned more
than once in the diary that
She was writing that she felt guilty or at
fault because she couldn't help everyone.
She felt as though if only if
only I've been there for them
If only if only I've been
able to hele this person.
Then that person would have been ok.
In China; Especially in Nanking,
The names and deeds of these
foreigners who stayed behind live on.
If there were no westerners
in the fallen capital,
The situation would have been much
morse for the Chinese population.
What is knowable is the hundreds
of thousands of lives saved
By the efforts of those
who established the zones,
And tried to keep as many as
civilians safe as possible.
Equally important is that they
recorded the facts of Nanking massacre.
Today, Minnie Vautrin
revered as a living Buddha.
She is called “Kuan Yin”
Buddha, Goddess of Mercy.
6 weeks before the fall of Nanking,
Minnie writes it in her diary:
Think of the lovely coloring
of the autumn leaves,
The glimpses of purple
mountain through our trees.
All these we have.
Nanking is a place of peace,
relaxation and beauty.
Human beings have an extraordinary
capacity to simply come back.
It is not uncommon for people
to live quite happily and
peacefully in a place where
terrible things happen.