Warcrimes in Nanking 1937

[Kim Sung]

Did Iris Chang live under police protection like Salman Rushdie? If Rushdie hadn't got protection from the police for a long period, he would have been assassinated long ago like Igarashi Hitoshi (五十嵐一) who translated 'The Satanic Verses' into Japanese.

There is no evidence that she had an underlying mental problem before 1997, but there is an account that she was constantly molested by Japanese right wing members' murder threats.

The director of the Department of Cinematography, New York University, Zui Ming-Hui (崔明慧) made an account on her interview with Zhang Cun-Ru (Iris Chang) like this.

She interviewed Chang in the summer 2003 on her book 'Thread of the Silkworm' on the founding father of Chinese space engineering Qian Xue-Sen (錢學森) for whom she was planning to make a documentary. Chang told Zui about her life frankly. Because Japanese right wing members sent blackmailing letters and telephone calls constantly, she had to change her telephone number again and again. She corresponded with her friends only via e-mail and couldn't have an interview at home, fearing intruders disguised as reporters.

Korean human rights activist Shin Sook-Ok (신숙옥) tells about her similar experiences in Japan. She suffered tremendous mental stress and fear caused by Japanese right wingers' incessant murder threats. In her book '재일 조선인의 가슴 속' ('In the hearts of Koreans living in Japan'), she wrote that she asked her mother to turn off the light at her home and not to get a phone call because of possible Japanese right wingers' terrorist attacks.

Here we can see how Japanese right wingers molested Shin Sook-Ok.
http://www1.odn.ne.jp/kumasanhouse/hod/ ... 10401.html

Motomiya Hiroshi (本宮ひろ志) who wrote a series of comics '国が燃える' ('The State is burning') on the Nanjing Massacre in comic magazine 'Young Jump' tells about a similar experience. He received 370 protests and blackmailing via fax just in two weeks. He had to stop his contibution to the magazine because of blackmailing and violent street demonstrations.

Japan is a country where gun control is conducted relatively well. If it is in America, Shin Sook-Ok and Motomiya would face more unpredictable threats. This is what Chang might have faced when she was alive.

Although we can't conclude whether Japanese right wingers' blackmailing was a direct reason that Chang chose a suicide, it is evident that those murder threats contributed to aggravation of her illness.

[Ahf]

Although we can't conclude whether Japanese right wingers' blackmailing was a direct reason that Chang chose a suicide, it is evident that those murder threats contributed to aggravation of her illness.

Not evident to me. I think people are failing to comprehend how very seriously ill Iris Chang was. Her illness is both often difficult to treat and has a high rate of suicide, treated or not. I wish people wouldn’t say she caved in or died from a ‘destruction of belief on humanity.’ Again, she was very very ill with a disease that she was born with.

[Penn44]

Did Iris Chang live under police protection like Salman Rushdie? If Rushdie hadn't got protection from the police for a long period, he would have been assassinated long ago like Igarashi Hitoshi (五十嵐一) who translated 'The Satanic Verses' into Japanese.

So, you're comparing Japanese right-wingers to Islamic assassins/terrorists?

There is no evidence that she had an underlying mental problem before 1997, but there is an account that she was constantly molested by Japanese right wing members' murder threats.

... Chang told Zui about her life frankly. Because Japanese right wing members sent blackmailing letters and telephone calls constantly, she had to change her telephone number again and again. She corresponded with her friends only via e-mail and couldn't have an interview at home, fearing intruders disguised as reporters.

No doubt Chang was harassed to some extent, however, she had on occasion exaggerated the threat to her due to her mental illness. Chang felt the CIA and "the government" was after her, too. In her three suicide notes she says nothing about Japanese right-wingers (unless you want to contend they make up the CIA or "the government"). In no account of Chang's mental illness and death, does anyone attribute her suicide to Japanese right-wingers. Unless, of course, you are privy to information the rest of the world does not have.

Her last suicide reads:

There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.

Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government's attempt to discredit me.

I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Chang

Korean human rights activist Shin Sook-Ok (신숙옥) tells about her similar experiences in Japan. She suffered tremendous mental stress and fear caused by Japanese right wingers' incessant murder threats. In her book '재일 조선인의 가슴 속' ('In the hearts of Koreans living in Japan'), she wrote that she asked her mother to turn off the light at her home and not to get a phone call because of possible Japanese right wingers' terrorist attacks.

Here we can see how Japanese right wingers molested Shin Sook-Ok.
http://www1.odn.ne.jp/kumasanhouse/hod/ ... 10401.html

Motomiya Hiroshi (本宮ひろ志) who wrote a series of comics '国が燃える' ('The State is burning') on the Nanjing Massacre in comic magazine 'Young Jump' tells about a similar experience. He received 370 protests and blackmailing via fax just in two weeks. He had to stop his contibution to the magazine because of blackmailing and violent street demonstrations.

Japan is a country where gun control is conducted relatively well. If it is in America, Shin Sook-Ok and Motomiya would face more unpredictable threats. This is what Chang might have faced when she was alive.

The two persons you list above were in Japan and not the US. Chang was in the US. Do you contend that the power of the Japanese right-wing extends into the US? If so, is the US faced with a "vast Japanese right-wing conspiracy"? Where should we look for this conspiracy? Under our beds, in our closets?

Although we can't conclude whether Japanese right wingers' blackmailing was a direct reason that Chang chose a suicide, it is evident that those murder threats contributed to aggravation of her illness.

What evidence do you have to support your claim?

Again, Chang did not mention Japanese right-winger blackmailing or threats in her three suicide notes. Nor does anyone close to her attribute Japanese right-wing blackmailing or threats to her death. You are making this up. The unfortunate woman was mentally ill.

Penn44

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[Penn44]

1. I am not a lawyer, so try not to preach my language organization. About the "evidence" I mentioned above, I meant "KEY EVIDENCE". If your are a lawyer you gotta know that "key evidence" is extremly important in a lawsuit, in some cases it could be just several pieces of paper. If the suspects destroied those paper, there is no way to nail him down.

What "KEY EVIDENCE" was destroyed?

2. A lot of evidences had pointed out that those "secret files" in US Archives are absolutely incomplete, a lot of them had been burned before the war is ended. Please, please try not ask me to show you evidences, I do not have the time. I am ain't lawyer, I am ain't proff.

You need to provide some kind of proof or source to back up your claim. You appear to be merely speculating and passing it off as fact.

Conspiracy theorists love to point to "missing evidence" as proof that their assertions are correct.

3. Penn44, if you are a Amerian you gotta know the "David Parker Ray" case. That devil serial killer terriblly raped, tortured and killed 3 plus females. A female police officer who investigated the case committed suicide after, with a pistol. She finnished her life just like Iris Zhang, with a bullet. What a coincidence! You'll tell me that's bi-polar, or something like that, right? Haha. Diease is not the reason, the reason is DESTRUCTION OF BELIEFE ON HUMANITY!

Your choice of the the alleged suicide of the FBI sketch artist is a poor choice as evidence of someone's death after the "destruction of belief in humanity" Serial killers are rare and extreme cases. One source states there are 500 serial killers active in the US at any one time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer ). The current US population is estimated 302 million ( http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html ). That's one serial killer per 600,000. How can the actions of an extremely small number of pathological individuals represent humanity at large and reasonably destroy the belief in humanity of a psychologically healthy person and lead to suicide? Either the FBI sketch artist was a pathologically vulnerable person and/or the artist had other issues affecting his/her life.

You need to review the bi-polar disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

In one of Chang's three suicide notes, she wrote nothing about any destruction of belief in humanity or fears of death threats from "Japanese right-wingers." She did write she thought that the CIA and the government was out to get her:

There are aspects of my experience in Louisville that I will never understand. Deep down I suspect that you may have more answers about this than I do. I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.

Days before I left for Louisville I had a deep foreboding about my safety. I sensed suddenly threats to my own life: an eerie feeling that I was being followed in the streets, the white van parked outside my house, damaged mail arriving at my P.O. Box. I believe my detention at Norton Hospital was the government's attempt to discredit me.

I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Chang

4. I will NEVER deny wrongdoings that communists had done before. You see, that's the difference between you and me. Come on, we are discussing "Nanking massacre" here. Go open a new thread if you want to talk about communist genocide.

I won't deny the Communist wrongs either. Since you are engaged in this pursuit of heightened awareness of war crimes, I think you may find it beneficial to examine Chinese crimes so you can better understand the variety of Japanse feelings on the matter as well.

5. Communists are still humanbeings. Criticize communist doesn't make a right.

I am sure they are wonderful people.

Last word, the reason why we study war crimes nowdays is to realize the devil inside humanbeings, and to further prevent them from happaning again. We are not going to anti-german, or anti-janpan or anti anybody. We are not going to carry the hatred and make "Massacre of Tokyo" or "Massacre of washington" or anything like that. So calm down, for god's sake.

Who is this "we" you keep speaking of? Are you speaking for some group? If so, you should identify it. Did they elect you or were you self-appointed? If you are speaking solely for yourself you should drop the "we."

I am sure your study of war crimes has led you to take positive actions on your part to prevent them from happening again.

By the way, the study of war crimes need not be for moralistic reasons.

Penn44

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[Peter H]

Bi-polar means literally two extremes.The person that I knew that had it changed personality every 6 months.For the first 6 months she was on a high,overspending,taking off on trips,up all night,nearly sending her husband broke.The next 6 months she was severly depressed,made suicide attempts,stayed in bed.

This is an illness that slowly gets worse as a person reaches his/her late 20s.Accounts from her parents,husband,school friends,doctors show her as brilliant but erractic,slowly descending into her own private hell as her condition worsened.Refusing to take her medication made her condition worse,being Asian(and the stigma involved with having a mental condition) also didn't help as her parents now concede with the help they now give to American-Asian Mental Health groups.

Those blogs and chat rooms pushing the view that she was the last victim of Nanking,a victim of some right wing conspiracy,says more about their own agenda,and shows little concern for the illness that this woman had to face.

[Kim Sung]

Misunderstanding again. I didn't say that Japanese right wingers' blackmailing was a direct reason that Chang chose a suicide, but those murder threats contributed to aggravation of her illness as we see in her interview with Zui Ming-Hui.

There is no evidence that she had any mental problem before 1997.

And I'd like to add that the Nanjing Massacre is not an issue between the Chinese communist government and the Japanese government but an issue between Chinese people in the world and the Japanese government. And Chinese communist crimes can't be a pretext fot Japanese denial of their war crimes. It is a moot point whether the Chinese communist government was as brutal as other communist regimes like Soviet Union, Romania or North Korea.

[Peter H]

From her college days:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... BQRRP1.DTL

On a high:

"Iris was a phenomenon," said one of her former teachers at Johns Hopkins, Ann Finkbeiner. In the fall of 1990, Iris took Finkbeiner's "Science Stories" course. "She talked almost obsessively. She got very, very wound up in things," Finkbeiner said. "You didn't always feel she was talking to you --

You obviously have no idea about this illness,it is progressive.It is a chemical inbalance of the brain,not triggered by emotional trauma.


Well known people with his illness,at least they take there medication:

http://www.pendulum.org/bpnews/archive/001852.html


And:
http://www.pendulum.org/bpnews/archive/001846.html

The illness, formerly known as manic depression, affects hundreds of thousands of people in the UK. Although it can be managed successfully with drug and psychological therapies, 15 per cent of sufferers - about 2000 people a year - kill themselves. Doctors estimate that one in 100 have bipolar disorder, but some researchers think the true figure could be far higher. Campaigners say only about half of sufferers are actually diagnosed and, on average, this can take eight years.

[Kim Sung]

From her college days:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... BQRRP1.DTL

Do you think that those kinds of things can be an evidence that she had a mental problem? Well, it belongs to the category of peculiar personalities. I've met many people with such personality, but they are living a normal life now. If we include this account as an evidence of mental problem, we have so many mentally deranged person around us. And it is also irrelevant to assume that she was bound to end her life with suicide whether she wrote 'The Rape of Nanking' and faced harsh criticism or not.

[Penn44]

There is no evidence that she had any mental problem before 1997.

Why is 1997 so important? The date of release for her book, Rape of Nanking? Her mental disorder was biological in origin, and not event-caused.

Penn44

.

[Penn44]

I disagree with other posters that Chang suicide was influenced by the harassment of Japanese right-wingers or by some alleged loss of faith in humanity. I think her bi-polar disorder made her hyper-sensitive to the pain of others. On the plus side, this hypersensitivity made her particularly empathetic to the victims, and help her to articulate their pain through her written work, public appearances, and victims advocacy work. The downside is that these hyper-sensitive people absorb too much of the emotional pain of others and they eventually crash and burn after awhile, and many commit suicide.

But Chang was also extremely sensitive, in a number of ways. "She was a very emotional person," Chang's father says. In his eulogy, Douglas recalled the time he tried to persuade her to join him and some friends on an outing to the beach in Santa Barbara. Chang, who wanted to stay home and work, told them she didn't like the beach: "The sands makes little cuts in my feet, and the saltwater lashes at my wounds."

http://www.acmhs.org/documents/ACMHS-SF-Mag-03-05.pdf

She also: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... BQRRP1.DTL

Chang's life was a Greek tragedy of sorts - she had a "gift," but this "gift" ultimately spelled her doom.

Of course, Chang having bi-polar disorder does not degrade the quality of her work. A number of creative people, some of whom famous, have bi-polar disorder. See:
http://www.pendulum.org/information/inf ... amous.html
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/n ... hardt.html

Penn44

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[David Thompson]

Let's get back on topic -- Warcrimes in Nanking 1937.

[Peter H]

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asa ... 90065.html

We believe that Abe should pay a visit to Nanjing as the city is now called. Former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Tomiichi Murayama visited the war museum near the Marco Polo Bridge while in office. Leaving history disputes to experts, Japanese leaders should travel to this symbolically important city to console the spirits of war victims. The Chinese people as well as the international community would look favorably on such a development.

This year should not witness another clash of emotions and resentment between the two nations.

[Peter H]

The Nanking Atrocity: An Interpretive Overview
Fujiwara Akira

http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2553

Thus battle reports and battlefield diaries-- official, public, Japanese military sources-- supplement and substantiate personal accounts by Westerners about mass executions of Chinese POWs. Japanese sources of this kind refute the Ministry of Education’s claim, formerly used in textbook screening, that such killings were the acts of a few heartless soldiers in the heat of battle and did not take place in an organized way throughout the army as a whole. These sources also expose the falsity of arguments by Japanese conservative revisionists who, with studied ignorance of international law, insist that the killing of POWs was an extension of combat and thus does not constitute a massacre or an Atrocity. Imperial army records show that Japanese soldiers killed Chinese troops who, having lost all desire and ability to fight back, were begging to surrender so that their lives might be spared.

To execute soldiers lacking the will and means to resist on the pretext that they are “defeated stragglers” or “combatants disguised in civilian clothes” is unjustifiable, illegal, and inhumane. Worse still, it is a downright atrocity to slaughter huge numbers of civilians in the process without making an effort to ascertain if they in fact are military personnel. Even foreign nationals from states friendly to Japan concurred on this point. On 20 January 1938, the German Branch Consulate in Nanking sent this report to its Foreign Ministry:

"Our few policemen could not stop vast numbers of Chinese soldiers from fleeing into the [Nanking] Safety Zone. (Some had thrown away their arms, but even when this was not the case, they lacked any means to resist.) On that pretext, the Japanese army began a massive search of houses and hauled away all Chinese suspected of being soldiers. The usual Japanese way of determining whom to seize was to check for abrasions or other tell-tale signs of having worn helmets on their heads, carried rifles on their shoulders, or lugged knapsacks on their backs. Foreign witnesses say that the Japanese tricked the Chinese by promising to give them work or to pardon them, but then led them away to be killed. The Japanese took no steps to declare martial law or anything of the sort. Why should we expect any such pretensions on their part? They flout the conventions of law in wartime as well as the rules of human decency?"

Conservative revisionists in Japan today deny the Nanking Atrocity or justify it by claiming that mop-up operations were conducted against Chinese soldiers disguised in civilian clothes. These guerrillas, or would-be guerrillas, it is claimed, pretended to be peace-loving civilians but actually bore concealed weapons waiting for a chance to snipe at Japanese troops. That form of combat violated international laws of war, so those Chinese combatants forfeited all legal rights that POWs enjoy. As this argument goes, it was a justifiable act of self-defense for Japanese units to kill them, and it was also permissible to capture and execute them for committing these acts, which were war crimes. Raids into the Nanking Safety Zone (NSZ), it is held, were legitimate combat operations to wipe out enemy soldiers disguised as civilians. In fact, however, Chinese soldiers who fled into the NSZ lacked the will to fight that was needed to become guerrillas. They had no place of refuge except the NSZ, and they changed into civilian clothes simply to avoid being killed by the invaders. It was indefensible for Japanese troops to kill them on the spot with no effort to ascertain their true status, or to execute them as war criminals without bringing them before military tribunals. Furthermore, it was even less justifiable to kill large numbers of innocent civilians based on arbitrary criteria such as having what seemed to be helmet or shoulder-strap abrasions, which purported “proved” that they were soldiers.

The “Rape of Nanking,” as it was first called in 1937-38, became known the world over because of the huge number of rapes and mass murders committed against civilians. These atrocities took center stage at the Tokyo war crimes trials where Chinese victims and foreign witnesses testified, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) emphasizes this issue today by seeking out ever more victims and witnesses. Thus, crimes against the general civilian population remains the key point in the debate over Nanking. However, conservative revisionists in Japan remain mum on this point, ignoring all testimonies by Chinese victims, neutral foreign witnesses, and even Japanese victimizers as being uncorroborated in bona fide primary sources. These conservatives begrudge at most that: “The Japanese army did commit misdeeds against the civilian population. The International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone protested against the killing of 47 civilians. Not all of these cases can be substantiated, but even if they could, that’s a total of forty-seven-- hardly a big number compared with other armies in history who captured and occupied foreign capitals in wartime.” Thus, conservative revisionists deny that Japanese troops perpetrated large- scale atrocities against Chinese civilians. But the imperial army itself admitted this fact at the time. On 4 January 1938, IH, in the name of Field Marshal Prince Kan’in Kotohito, an uncle of Emperor Hirohito, issued an unprecedented statement to CCAA commander Matsui Iwane: “If we look at actual conditions in the army, we must admit that much is less than blemish-free. Invidious incidents, especially as to troop discipline and morality, have occurred with increasing frequency of late. However much we may wish to disbelieve this fact, we cannot but have doubts.” Though hardly blunt and direct, this imperial prince admonished against ongoing Japanese atrocities.

[michael mills]

Interesting material.

Two things seem clear:

1. Japanese troops did summarily execute some thousands of male Chinese in civilian clothes arrested in Nanjing after its capture, on the pretext that these were soldiers illegally disguised as civilians; and

2. After the capture of Nanjing, Japanese troops did run amok for a time, committing a number of crimes against the civilian population, including murder, rape, plunder and destruction of property.

The question is whether the Japanese misdeeds in the weeks after the capture of Nanjing were really on the scale claimed by Chinese governments (300,000 innocent persons illegally killed, according to the maximum claim).

The best evidence appears to show that some tens of thousands of Chinese were killed in and around Nanjing during and after its capture, over and above the normal casualties of battle. The great majority of these appear to have been Chinese males summarily executed by Japanese forces on the grounds of being soldiers disguised as civilians; some of them may have been such, others may have been entirely innocent civilians. The legality of executing soldiers dressed in civilian clothes and hiding out among the civilian population is a matter for debate, and may depend on whether such persons had participated in hostilities while in civilian dress.

[Kim Sung]

New information from China

According to multiple Chinese media today, a new collection of 'Historical Documents on the Nanjing Massacre II' (南京大屠杀史料集) has been published yesterday. Comprising 27 books, this new collection is a sequel to 28 books of 'Historical Documents on the Nanjing Massacre I' published in 2005.

Among these 27 books, 8 are lists of 13,000 people murdered in the Nanjing Massacre (遇难同胞名录). One of the authors, Jiang Liang-Qin (姜良芹) who is associate professor at the Nanjing University told at the press conference that they started this project in 2000, collecting data from documents and survivor accounts. The lists specify names, gender, age, time and method of murdering victims. Because so many years have passed since the Massacre, it was a very difficult task to collect information on victims. According to the reports, they will continue this investigation as a long-term project.



http://news.qq.com/a/20071204/000924.htm