The Nanjing Massacre was a mass killing and rape of the citizens of Nanjing, China by Japanese soldiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The photo above is a memorial in Nanjing that pays tribute to all the victims of the massacre. What really stuck out to me in The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang, was how the event has not been widely disseminated and the extremes that those in Japan are willing to go to in an attempt to cover up this piece of history.
One reason that the events that took place at Nanjing have not been vastly talked can be found in the postwar differences in how Germany and Japan handled their wartime crimes. Germany on one-hand has incorporated it into their postwar political identity. On the other-hand, the Japanese government never forced itself or Japanese society to do the same. A majority of the Japanese society treated the war crimes as the isolated acts of individual soldiers or as what took place at Nanjing didn’t occur (pg 200).
The Japanese government went to extraordinary lengths to make sure the events of Nanjing were not discussed in schools. Chang said that, “Perhaps one of the most sinister aspects of the malaise in Japanese education is the deliberate obstruction of important historical information about World War II through textbook censorship” (pg 205). The Japanese education system has fallen prey to selective amnesia. A prime example of this is Japanese schoolchildren had only come to learn in 1994 that Hirohito’s army was to blame for over 20 million deaths of Allied soldiers and Asian civilians during World War II . This is large in part to all of the textbooks that were bring used in Japan’s elementary and secondary schools being first approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education (Pg 205). In 1997, the Ministry of Education reduced a section on World War II within a standard history book of several hundred pages to only six pages.
Japanese censorship was not only practiced by the government but also by the media as well (pg 210). Chang goes on to say that, “In many ways private-sector self-censorship can be more insidious than government censorship because it is subtler and harder to pinpoint” (pg 210). Not only did the Japanese try to censor textbooks and media, they attacked anyone who tried to speak out. Azuma Shiro was the first Japanese veteran to openly admit his criminal acts in Nanking. In 1987, he became the first former Japanese soldier to apologize in public for the role he played in Nanking. The results of his apology was a overbearing amount of criticism and death threats. He retired from his company and moved with his wife to a house in a tiny village outside of Kyoto to protect himself (pg 213). This is just one example of how Japan went after those who were willing to speak out.
Japan has a responsibility to history to acknowledge what happened during the Nanking Massacre. Chang said it best when she explained, “Japan carries not only the legal burden buy the moral obligation to acknowledge the evil it perpetrated at Nanking” (pg 225). The Japanese government needs to issue an official apology to the victims and educated future generations of Japanese citizens about what really happen. History provides the ability to learn from the past. If history is distorted, it makes it very difficult to learn anything.
It was interesting to see the documentary’s take on the government’s attempts at censorship. The divide between progressive Japanese historians and the revisionists was enlightening to learn about. You explained this censorship well in your post.
The discussion of the censorship is very important. It makes me question the legitimacy of Masaaki’s article especially when he mentioned the Japanese generals did not know anything about the massacre. This would mean Japan saw the need for censorship immediately. I wonder was this act rogue soldiers or was this just the way Japan conducted war?
Although I agree that with your call for Japan to recognize its responsibility in the slaughter at Nanking, I don’t think it is in their interest to admit to the event in anyway. While morally it is the right move, we now live in a time where many of the people who experience the massacre are now gone and all that is left is the collective memory and pain of past generations. Politically, it is in Japan’s interest to be conservative in light of emerging evidence and to scrutinize sources.