They Were In Nanjing

The Nanjing Massacre, which took place after the Japanese attacked and captured Nanjing in December 1937, shocked the world with the magnitude of its atrocities. With newly uncovered eye-witness material left behind by American and British journalists, missionaries, and diplomats, They Were in Nanjing takes the readers back in time to revisit the event and live through those horror-filled days. The first-hand accounts range from English media reports, personal records, missionary and Christian organization documents, to American and British diplomatic and military documents. The research yields new discoveries and presents issues that have previously not been adequately dealt with, for instance, Japanese attacks on American citizens, and losses and damage to American and British properties as a result of Japanese atrocities. No other book on the Nanjing Massacre presents the first-hand foreign perspective so thoroughly or consistently.

The New York Times bestselling account of one of history's most brutal—and forgotten—massacres, when the Japanese army destroyed China's capital city on the eve of World War II, "piecing together the abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror". (Adam Hochschild, Salon) In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers, that of the Chinese, and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety zone, which saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanjing and launched six weeks of carnage that would become known as the Rape of Nanjing. In addition to the deaths of Chinese POWs and civilians, tens of thousands of women were raped, tortured, and killed by Japanese soldiers. In this traumatic environment, both native and foreign-born inhabitants of Nanjing struggled to carry on with their lives. This volume collects the diaries and correspondence of Minnie Vautrin, a farmgirl from Illinois who had dedicated herself to the education of Chinese women at Ginling College in Nanjing. Faced with the impending Japanese attack, she turned the school into a sanctuary for ten thousand women and girls. Vautrin's firsthand accounts of daily life in Nanjing and the intensifying threat of Japanese invasion reveal the courage of the occupants under siege--Chinese nationals as well as Western missionaries, teachers, surgeons and business people--and the personal costs of violence in wartime. Thanks to Vautrin's painstaking effort in keeping a day-to-day account, present-day readers are able to examine this episode of history at close range through her eyes. With detailed maps, photographs, and carefully researched in-depth annotations, Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing: Diaries and Correspondence, 1937-38 presents a comprehensive and detailed daily account of the events and of life during the horror-stricken days within the city walls and in particular on the Ginling campus. Through chronologically arranged diaries, letters, reports, documents, and telegrams, Vautrin bears witness to those terrible events and to the magnitude of trauma that the Nanjing Massacre exacted on the populace.

About three weeks after Japanese troops captured Nanjing when the worst of the atrocities was over, American diplomats were allowed to return to the city to re-open their embassy on January 6, 1938. Three days later, British and German diplomats arrived by HMS Cricket on January 9. Since their arrival, the diplomats continuously dispatched cables, reports, and documents reporting conditions in the city, including Japanese atrocities, reign of terror, economic situation, living conditions, and other aspects of social life. These diplomatic records prove to be a treasure trove of invaluable primary source material for research and study on the Nanjing Massacre from unique perspectives. A Dark Page in History is a collection of British diplomatic documents, Royal Navy reports of proceedings, and US naval intelligence weekly reports. The collection is invaluable as these newly unearthed primary source materials undoubtedly enhance our knowledge and understanding of the scope and depth of the Nanjing Massacre. In addition to updated and newly added annotations, included in this new edition are six maps, along with appendices consisting of USS Oahu December 1937 log book and a report by Frank Pruit Lockhart, US Consul-General at Shanghai, transmitting 13 photos of Japanese atrocities on September 16, 1938.

Many in the West still think of World War II as starting either after Germany's attack on Poland in 1939 or the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, two years and four years, respectively, after long simmering tensions between the Chinese and the Japanese exploded into total war. To date, the infamous Nanjing Massacre of late 1938, in which the Japanese Imperial Army slaughtered and raped countless citizens of Nanjing, has been described from various Chinese, Japanese, and German perspectives. This book of firsthand testimony, mined from the archives of the Yale Divinity School library by Dr. Zhang and his colleagues, may be the most powerful of all, for here are eyewitness accounts by a remarkable group of nine men and one woman, dedicated, compassionate, articulate, and devout American missionaries who were there on ground zero, refusing to leave, and doing everything in their power to save the Chinese victims of this appalling atrocity.

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.

It’s 1937, and the Japanese are poised to invade Nanjing. Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women’s College, decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for more than ten thousand homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on the behalf of the hapless victims. Yet even when order and civility are restored, she remains deeply embattled, always haunted by the lives she could not save. At once a searing story that unfurls during one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century and an indelible portrait of a singular and brave woman, Nanjing Requiem is another tour de force from the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting.