The Rape Of Nanking The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II

A warning should be given to any prospective reader of this book. I would strongly suggest that you do not read this book if you are easily upset by graphic descriptions and images of rape and murder. I have read a lot of graphic books about the Jewish Holocaust, but the `Rape of Nanking' is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. That being said, this book is a massively important testimony for the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians who were brutally raped, tortured and murdered by the sadistic Japanese invaders during the Sino-Japanese Conflict which eventually formed part of the Second World War. This book is essential reading, I knew nothing at all about this massacre before reading this book. I had read books written about the survivors of Japanese prisoner of war camps and was aware that torture and barbarism was part of the captor's psyche and management; but I was totally unprepared for the level of violence and depravity the Japanese subjected their conquered Chinese citizens to. The book principally describes the six week period in which the Japanese invaders subjected their captives to some of the worst violence recorded in modern warfare. The author also describes the `International Safe Zone' which was created by a small band of Westerners including the famous John Rabe (a complete paradox as he was a `kind-hearted' Nazi); in order to attempt to provide a comparatively safe haven for the refugees of the conflict. The book ends by describing the punishments received by some of the perpetrators before looking at how the Japanese as a country still refuses to officially recognise the `Rape of Nanking' and has done nothing to alleviate the suffering of the survivors of this terrible event. This book is truly heart rendering and it will certainly upset the reader at various points. It did with me, I just couldn't get my head around the lack of humanity that the invaders showed to their captives. I would recommend that as many people as possible who are able to read this book do so. This is certainly a forgotten Holocaust and what with the Japanese government continuing to deny this crime, combined with the passage of time; the world needs to know what happened in Nanking in order to prevent it being forgotten from memory and most importantly as a warning to future generations of what human beings are capable of doing to each other. So in conclusion: harrowing, graphic, upsetting, but vital reading.

Most countries have historical skeletons in the cupboard and this book does not come across to me as being anti-Japanese. It simply documents a very dark part of their past which quite rightly they should have by now acknowledged. They will never have honour until they do? This was a period when their imperial army was one of the most barbaric, cruel and unfeeling of all armies in the world. They were renowned for their awful treatment of POW's - the `Burma Railway' springs readily to mind, so Nanking was not a blip? However, The British Empire, the Americans, even some Red Indian tribes have done some pretty horrendous things in their history and of course the Chinese, Russians & Germans atrocities are also well documented. History is littered with despots and their atrocities - they are with us even today. It's never nice to read but they do need to be exposed. The book for me is well written; the story is well-structured and never less than thoroughly interesting from start to finish. Even taking the six weeks of massacre out of the equation there are plenty of sobering thoughts to be gleaned from this book. To those who feel this book is less than it could have been, or that the real truth has not been told, I can only say that 50 pages of acknowledgements is some proof of the effort made to get the story told. If hard evidence (corpses), newsreel (both in Japan & Internationally), photographic evidence, personal accounts, diaries, Japanese admissions, survivor testaments and finally a guilty verdict from the war crimes commission are not enough to persuade, then frankly, `denial' is the only answer to the counter view of what most clearly see and have to believe occurred.

A very well written and informative book about the Japan's occupation of China during WWII. PROS: extremely interesting, generally well-written, references, photos CONS: a little bit too emotional/self-involved at times (I only note this because this book is often sold as a "scholarly" text, while I would tend to call it an intelligent and informative text written by someone who has a clear opinion on the topic), a little bit repetitive at times. OVERALL: Definitely worth the read. I think it makes an interesting point of discussion and contains information that everybody should be at least aware of, if not know in a bit more detail if you're interested in East Asian politics.

Great book. Very interesting

Before reading this book I knew relatively little about the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s, and even less about the fate of China’s ancient capital, Nanking. I am now considerably better informed, having read Isis Chang’s masterful work, ‘The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II’. As well as giving a detailed account of the wholesale murder and rape which was meted out by the Japanese army on the citizens of Nanking in December 1937, Chang tries to understand what led the Japanese to commit such horrendous war crimes. She tells of the heroism of many westerners living in Nanking – most notably the German Nazi John Rabe. She also considers why the atrocities are so little known about in the West – and why to this day, no reparations have been paid to China, with many leading Japanese politicians even denying that these dreadful events took place. At the end of the book is a moving afterword by Chang’s husband. After this book was published in 1997, Chang followed a demanding schedule promoting it, and soon became mentally ill. Her condition worsened (she was convinced that the Bush administration were trying to kill her) and in 2004 she took her own life at the age of 36. It’s a tragic ending to a story of great evil. I would encourage everyone with an interest in the Second World War to read ‘The Rape Of Nanking’, and thus help to ensure that this tragedy is no longer a forgotten holocaust.

Iris Chang wrote the first detailed account and examination of the desruction of Nanking by the Japanes Army and the rape and massacre of more than 300,000 chines civilians and soldiers.This the forgotten story of one of history;s most brutal mass murders and rapes during the Japanes war against China in World War 2. The book also examines the Japanese military culture that instilled in the Japanes soldiers a total disregard for human life.It is a shocking but gripping story of how and why this atrocity occurred and how both the West and China stifled open discussion of this mass murder after the Second World War as a result of Cold War politics. Like Masters Of Death by Richard Rhodes it is a very important testimony to evil and how easily it can occur when soldiers are socialized and brutalized to conduct war without any regard for morality and withoout any regard for human life. An important book of remembrance and how we should all be outraged by such appalling massacres. A record of one of the holocausts of the War between China and Japan which is little known and read in the West. Read and be outraged at why Japan even today has never apologised and taken responsibility for this holocaust and massacre. Japan you should be ashamed.! Clive

Parts of this book are very good, and I was never bored by it. The discussion of the impact of long-term cultural trends in Japan on the psyche of its soldiers was especially good. The main disappointment was the paucity of testimony from both victims and perpetrators, and what little there is, is poorly referenced, if referenced at all. I didn't necessarily expect to have half of each page taken-up with footnotes, but more in the way of primary evidence (properly cited) would have made for a much more compelling work. Why did the Japanese troops behave as they did? The book offers only a partial analysis, and one is left without any clear sense as to how much of it was orders from the top, and how much was spontaneous from the ranks. In comparison, Ordinary Men, the brilliant work by Christopher Browning, offers a far more detailed and nuanced case study of how murderous Nazi orders were received by and acted on by the men who did the murdering. I accept that documentary evidence, and witness/perpetrator testimony, is far harder to come by for the Japanese than for the Germans. Some of the author's statements comparing Japan and Nazi Germany are questionable. For example: - 'It was later determined that Japanese treatment of their POWs surpassed in brutality even that of the Nazis. Only one in twenty-five American POWs died under Nazi captivity, in contrast to one in three under the Japanese.' This is a disingenuous comparison; out of 5.5 million Soviet prisoners of war captured by the Germans, 3.3 million are estimated to have died in captivity. - 'Therefore, while the Nazi regime was overhauled and replaced and numerous Nazi war criminals were hunted down and brought to trial, many high-ranking wartime Japanese officials returned to power and prospered.' A great many German war criminals were never prosecuted, or had their sentences rendered very lenient. Plenty of mid-ranking SS men went on to be mayors, company directors, and so on. The German legal profession, in particular, was never really purged of judges and lawyers who obtained their positions in the Nazi era. Erich Von Manstein, a convicted war criminal and colluder in the Holocaust, was a senior adviser to NATO by the mid 50s. All sorts of factors conspired to make post-war Germany far less willing to confront the past than the author appears to think. Only in the 1990s did the Germans commence self-flagellation. - 'Rabe’s previous status as a Nazi raised understandable concerns among some members of his family, and in the immediate postwar years it was simply not politically correct to publish the documents of a Nazi or boast about his accomplishments, however worthy they might have been.' This statement is wrong, as evidenced by the plethora of self-exculpatory wartime memoirs by high-ranking German officers, including a number who had been close to the regime or Nazi party members. Paul Hausser, Kesselring, von Manstein, the list goes on... Totally appreciate I am being rather picky, but this book felt like it was constantly pregnant with greatness, but never quite gave birth to it..

I bought this book over 2 years ago and for some reason, couldn't find myself to read it. I knew about the horrors on what happened in Nanking, and had briefly researched it on Wiki, but I couldn't do it. It called to me yesterday and I have just finished it today. Iris brilliantly expressed what many cannot. The stories of those who suffered, true victims of which many perhaps, only brought to light by her book/research, deeply wounded me. Words cannot describe how the way they suffered makes me feel. People like you and me, treated in this inhumane way, is heart wrenching. The Leaders in the Safety Zone are real heroes. Their bravery in the face of death left me open-mouth in shock and awe. All the stories within the book will remain with me forever. I hope those whose stories haven't been told, those who unfortuantely, were sileneced and justice not served are shared with the world eventually, for they deserve to be told. I am grateful to have read her work and will try my best to share what she wrote and her book to others that may be interested in what happened in Nanking. I hope that someday, it is recognised for what it is, an event in history that should never be forgotten and is rememebered.

This is a well researched and beautifully written book about "The forgotten holocaust" (Nanking Massacre). The massacre of Nanking is one of the forgotten chapters of the 2nd world war. Reading this book is a gut wrenching experience. It is full of anecdotes of atrocities committed against helpless Chinese men and women. The book describes the mass murder and rape of Chinese citizens in the hands of marauding Japanese army during the occupation of Nanking in 1937. Though the estimates vary, the general consensus is that, between 300,000 to 400,000 Chinese were mercilessly murdered by the invading Japanese army. An estimated 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women were raped, mutilated and murdered. They did not spare even babies. Many a men were burnt alive. German Shepherd dogs were let loose on men, who were buried up to their waist. The dogs ripped apart these helpless men. During the 6 weeks of this horror, many foreigners stationed in Nanking risked their own life and heroically faced the Japanese soldiers. They tried saving as many Chinese citizens as possible. Notable among them were Rabe (A Nazi German), Wilson (an American physicist) and Vautrin (an American missionary). Stories of these brave foreigners who stood for the helpless Chinese, restores your faith in humanity.

Got it for my niece. She liked it.

Arrivato in anticipo e immediatamente aggredito dalla lettura. Libro eccellente per capire le responsabilità di tutti in quell'ennesimo orrendo episodio di violenza perpetrata da militari in guerra. Andrebbe letto tenendo conto di quanto riferito in "Shooting up", altro interessantissimo libro per confermare le responsabilità delle "linee di comando" delle alte gerarchie militari di tutti i paesi del mondo. L'unico appunto riguarda il libro in sé che mostra segni inequivocabili di uso, nonostante sia venduto come nuovo. (i segni d'usura riguardano l'uso di evidenziatore giallo su diverse pagine del libro: 1 a pag.64, 2 a pag.131, 1 a pag.133... per ora...)

What an interesting book. A must read if one wants to comprehend the atrocities in the Asian continent during WW2 and more than that, to comprehend what humans are capable of...

The book gives a detailed account of the atrocities during Nanjing Massacre, the different actors involved in the historical stage and the political circumstances. It's not only an objective description of historical facts but also a deep reflection into historical process and human nature. It's indignant that Nanjing Massacre and the heroic acts of persons such as John Rabe are still ignored or even denied by some people. Thanks Iris Zhang for this excellent book