The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame

by Honda Katsuichi, Frank Gibney, Karen Sandness

This book is based on four visits to China between 1971 and 1989 by Honda Katsuichi, an investigative journalist for Asahi Shimbun. His aim is to show in pitiless detail the horrors of the Japanese Army's seizure and capture of Nanjing in December 1937. Unvarnished accounts of the testimony - Chinese victims and Japanese perpetrators - to the rape and slaughter are juxtaposed with public relations announcements of the Japanese Army as printed in various Japanese newspapers of the time. The bland announcements of triumphant victories stand in bitter contrast to the atrocities that actually took place on the scene. The story unfolds with horrible detail as we watch the triumphant progress of the Japanese army whose troops were bent on rape and killing in the so-called "heat of battle." Yet by recalling the testimony of Japanese soldiers and reporters who were on the scene, as well as reproducing dispatches by Japanese Army authorities at the time, Honda makes it clear that the atrocities were part of a studied effort directed by the Japanese high command to impress the Chinese people with the power of its army and the folly of resistance to it - the estimate of 300,000 killed in these "military operations" is no exaggeratoin. Honda has worked with other Japanese journalists and scholars who have attempted to reveal the truth of the Nanjing massacre, provoked by the efforts of right-wing Japanese, including, sadly, many government officials, to whitewash the whole incident, even to the point of contending that a "massacre" never happened. This gripping account of the atrocities and cover-up joins other exposes - Chinese and now German - in keeping alive the memory of this shameful event.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Japan, China, World War II, Japanese Literature, Historical

396 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

Reviews

[Ally Armistead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Katsuichi's meticulous exploration of Japan's cover-up of the Nanjing atrocities is on parallel, if not more powerful, than Iris Chang's. Both go right to the heart of the matter--the exposure of Japan's propaganda, denial, and re-shaping of the massacre--but what is so amazing about Katsuichi's treatment is that Honda himself risks his life for it. As a Japanese journalist, Katsuichi has had threats on his life from Japanese officials, having to hide himself (and his work) to stay alive. This autobiographical thread lends Honda's book an immediacy that is lacking in Chang's book.

Meticulous in his comparison of censored and uncensored news media from 1937, Katsuichi shows us the great lengths of the Japanese military to hide the atrocities not just from the western world, but from its own citizens. Honda, as does Iris Chang, draws the comparison to post-Nazi Germany, how Germans would never allow this kind of denial to continue.

Throughout Katsuichi's book, I am haunted by the testimonies of Chinese victims--a mother shot in the back, her infant still nursing as she expires; a young Chinese boy who escapes beheading by lying under a heap of bodies; the expulsion of a fetus from a Chinese woman, a Japanese soldier holding its squirming spine at the tip of a bayonet. Iris Chang certainly covers this same ground, but hearing the testimonies from the Chinese themselves is far more powerful and searing, and ultimately more tangible.

A fantastic book for students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as general readers alike.

[Anne Marie Georgescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

O carte brutală. Sunt interviuri cu supraviețuitorii a ceea ce a fost probabil cel mai îngrozitor genocid al Japoniei în China, genocid pe care Japonia l-a ascuns și/sau a încercat să-l nege ori minimalizeze ani de zile. Am aflat despre masacrul ăsta pe la începuturile internetului, de pe un blog. Un bun prieten m-a rugat atunci să-i traduc din engleză textul, era foarte curios. Luni de zile am avut coșmaruri după ce am tradus textele alea și pe undeva, speram să fie exagerate relatările. Am trimis în pivnița minții cuvintele astea, masacru și Nanjing, mulți ani, până mi-a sărit în ochi cartea asta pe goodreads. Nu doar că relatările pe care le tradusesem acum 25 de ani nu erau exagerate, ci lucrurile au stat mult mai rău. Trigger warning: 3 paragrafe mai jos am pus un citat din carte, nu citiți dacă nu aveți stomacul tare.

E și o lecție despre cum e rescrisă istoria în cartea asta. Masacrul a fost scos din cărțile de istorie timp de vreo 20 de ani, iar cartea lui Katsuichi a făcut ca negarea de către japonezi a masacrului să devină foarte grea spre imposibilă.

Cartea e extrem de detaliată, cu hărți, poze, fotografii și schițe, explicații ale situației complicate, ale diferențelor culturale etc. Foarte bine scrisă, minuțios documentată, dar a fost groaznic de greu și de dureros s-o citesc.

De exemplu, sunt în carte schițe ale cuvelor imense de metal în care erau procesate corpurile celor uciși - faptul că ai și o schiță a cuvei, cu dimensiuni și explicații, cu un desen al rampei încorporate în cuvă, pe lângă mărturia cuiva care a lucrat acolo, face ca totul să fie și mai vizual, impactul e și mai puternic. Vorbind despre cuvele astea, de exemplu, asta e o parte din mărturia unui refugiat chinez care a fost trimis să lucreze acolo:

The first day, they went to the riverbank outside Hanzhong Gate to take care of an immense mountain of bodies. He could not tell whether they had been burned to death or whether they had been set on fire after being killed, but almost all of them were charred. In most cases, it was impossible to identify their clothing, and the limbs of several of them were scattered about. The team transported the bodies to a vacant lot, divided them into four piles, and threw dirt over them, creating burial mounds instead of laying them in pits. However, even that first day's work left Cui physically and emotionally exhausted. When he pleaded that the work was impossible for him because his wounds had not completely healed, his supervisor offered to switch him to different work. He was transferred to the Jinhua Soy Sauce Factory (now the Nanjing Number Two Pharmaceutical Plant), located in Erdaogengzi, outside the city near Hanzhong Gate. But this was not easy work either. Inside the factory were four or five huge, metal soy sauce brewing vats, each 6 to 7 meters wide and 4 meters high, and every one of them was filled to the brim with bodies. Most of the bodies were upside down in the vats, with their feet in the air, and they needed to be transported to the burial grounds. The vats were equipped with ramp/ike, slanting ladders, and two workers climbed these ladders to carry one body at a time up and over the side. The bodies at the very bottoms of the vats were dragged up with fire hooks. Next to these large vats were about a hundred smaller bowl-shaped vats, each 1 meter deep and 1 meter across. There had also been bodies in these, but by the time Cui went to the factory, most of these had already been hauled away, and there were only a few left. Cui did not notice whether there was anyone counting and keeping track of the bodies.


He found himself unable to tolerate not only the hard labor of hauling bodies but also the strong stench of the death, the putrefaction, and the dirt. After only one day, he quit this job, too. Since the wage was 1 yuan per day, Cui received only 2 yuan for these two days of work.

In the meantime, Cui decided to lay in a stock of rice so that he could go into business for himself selling food. When he went to see if any rice had come into Xiaguan, he found that the railroad station had been burned, but someone he met there happened to tell him that there was supposed to be a shipment of rice arriving from Liuhe at Baota Bridge. Accordingly, he walked along the Yangtze to Baota Bridge, seeing masses of bodies on the way at Meitan Harbor. There was no rice at Baota Bridge, either, but along the river behind a meat processing plant was yet another immense heap of bodies. It was already March, the bodies had begun to decompose, and the stench followed Cui for nearly a kilometer. On the way home, he encountered four Japanese checkpoints, and at each one, he was forced to remove his cap and bow.

Citatul de mai sus reprezintă una dintre descrierile cu impact emoțional mic, comparativ cu restul. Imediat după această mărturie, este juxtapus un articol din ziarul oficial al Japoniei din vremea când aveau loc cele de mai sus. Articolul e un text sforăitor despre „co-prosperitatea” sino-japoneză, despre cât de bine stau lucrurile în provincia cucerită și cum guvernul japonez lucrează de zor pentru a restabili stabilitatea regiunii și a orașului Nanjing, cum are grijă de refugiați, se ocupă de serviciile poștale, reface sistemul de alimentare cu apă, pune economia pe picioare etc., un guvern eroic, ce mai, ai zice că ești la televiziunea rusă și afli cum îi ajută și eliberează rușii pe ucraineni. Autorul încheie pasajul cu acest comentariu:


This is how things were in the war-torn regions, particularly Nanjing, as they faced seven more years of Japanese occupation. These conditions may have seemed like "stability" compared to the period of the Nanjing offensive, but the life of the Chinese people under the control of a foreign military was far from "stable." Often, not only the perpetrators of anti-Japanese or antimilitary actions but uninvolved people as well were subject to retaliatory execution.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can not honestly say that I liked this book (I had nightmares for a long time after I finished it), but if you want to understand what happened during the Japanese invasion of China this book will tell you. It is well done and extremely detailed (in truth a bit too detailed). Not for the weak of heart.

[Shomeret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honda went to China and interviewed a great many survivors. He also had access to materials in Japanese such a war diaries by Japanese soldiers. He deals with these war crimes in context to show that this behavior was characteristic of the entire invasion, and not just the occupation of Nanjing. There were numerous atrocities committed en route to Nanjing. There were also many thousands of prisoners who were killed as a matter of policy. Honda quotes a 1933 textbook used by the Japanese Army Infantry School called Studies in Methods of Fighting the Chinese Army. This textbook states that most Chinese soldiers are "drifters", so killing prisoners would have no consequences. It seemed to me that the actual reason that the Japanese army established this policy, was that they couldn't feed the prisoners. Yet killing them was still a violation of the Geneva conventions which are a series of international agreements about the treatment of military prisoners. The last such agreement before WWII was in 1929. See Wikipedia on the Geneva Conventions

When I read the book I looked for examples of courage and resourcefulness on the part of the survivors. Although some survived due to good fortune, I did find accounts that illustrated bravery. In some cases there was cooperation among groups of individuals that allowed them to survive. I found this inspiring and illuminating.

I respect Honda Katsuichi for being willing to stand up for what is right. His book is excellent scholarship and I would recommend it to anyone who wants in depth research on what happened in Nanjing during WWII.

Read the full review on my blog at http://www.maskedpersona.blogspot.com

[Kyle Broxon · Rating 4 out of 5]

meticulous reporting of something I was only vaguely aware. Definitely the opposite of an easy read. Most of it too horrifying for me to read right before bed, my usual reading time.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good (though painful) book. Told primarily through witness accounts and newspapers. Very informative, I really learned a lot.