Painting by Hung Liu, 2003
This image above is a painting by Hung Liu and it depicts a young girl surrounded by destruction and death. The colors used in this painting are culturally considered colors of devastation and death as well as ghosts. Hung Liu uses these artistic elements to represent the darkness and desolation that occurred in Nanking in 1937.
Before World War II there was an existing atmosphere of guilt and anger from all over the world including that of Asia. There were many events that took place leading up to World War II that sparked a fire throughout the world. In light of these incidents, both historians and individuals involved question the truth of what occurred. One of the cases where the reality of the time is questioned is the Nanking massacre.
The limited shared reality of the Nanking massacre from all points of view is that Japan took control of Nanking by imperial forces and killed Chinese people. The number of people killed and the level of brutality in which they were killed in what is debated by scholars and first-hand accounts.
Evidence from both parties of the Nanking dispute play a role in the shaping of history and the responses that followed. The author Iris Chang wrote The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II which goes into detail about the stories her parents would tell her about the Nanking massacre, and how it was strange that there was limited information to be found of such a massive and important part of history. She describes this massacre as a second Holocaust, except there are no reparations paid by Japan to China. The main focus of this piece is to expose the main forms of censorship that are occurring and the reasons for doing so. She uses evidence by using quotes from various Japanese officials denying these events and how saying that ruined their career. She calls the Nanking massacre a “blemish upon the honor of human beings” (p. 219) and was compelled to write this piece because there is nothing else about this period of time. Chang states that “the Japanese as a nation are still trying to bury the victims of Nanking–not under the soil, as in 1937, but into historical oblivion” (p. 220) which creates a difficult narrative to write about decades later.
On the other side of this battle of reality lies scholars like Tanaka Masaaki who wrote What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth. The author starts by defining the word massacre and states “that nothing remotely resembling a massacre took place in Nanking” (p. 7). Tanaka then describes several pictures that are said to be from the Nanking massacre, but the author is skeptical of them. Tanaka states that these images were falsely identified with the massacre and could not possibly be images of the deaths of thousands of people. Tanaka references and disputes Chang’s work by stating that the images from her book are falsely reported. The author confirms that these images are in fact from Nanking, but can not possibly represent what we think of as a ‘massacre’.
It is almost as if the Nanking massacre is being treated as a sort of conspiracy, that many are trying to cover up. The energy put into making sure textbooks are censored from this information makes a person question the motives of the government involved. The hidden records of this moment in history make it difficult to dissect and organize the accounts into what is factual versus what may be fake.
Your line “the Nanking massacre is being treated as a sort of conspiracy, that many are trying to cover up” is exactly how I feel about the enormous lengths taken to erase the massacre from Japanese history. Personally, I feel like it had to do with Japan’s ultra-nationalist forces, but also the attempt to reclaim lost glory. It’s as if denying any wrongdoing, including the denial of the war being one of Japanese aggression, is a way to resolve the defeat of the Japanese military and the reality that the Emperor was just a person, and not a national deity.
I liked that you touched on how some Japanese officials were more mad about the damage to their careers than the impact of covering up the rape. I also liked that you used to world conspiracy to describe how the event is being portrayed. Within American society conspiracy has a bit of a crazy connotation. I think that the idea of the Rape of Nanking being faked is a bit a lunatic idea and should not be given the same weight as evidence of its existence. However, I do find the argument of its falsification to be fascinating and relevant to historical discussions of the time.
I love the artwork you picked, art has a way of depicting events in a way that words do not. It is filled with the darkness and emotion. What is also compelling is the paintings ability to capture the aura of censorship that has nearly eliminated the event form history.
I like the painting by Hung Liu. I researched her a bit and she was born in 1945. She would not have had any recollection of the Nanking Massacre, so she must have heard about it from her parents, much like Iris Chang.