The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II - Iris Chang

Japan's dirty secret

I have read other accounts of Japan's barbaric behaviour in China but this one is as nightmarish as the accounts of Germanys' entry into Poland and Russia in WW2 . .Japan still does not acknowledge its culpability for the atrocities it committed,whereas Germany has compensated those most affected by their action.Whereas Germany has exhibiter remorse Japan's history books do not acknowledge their involvement.The author serves to remind us those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it.

What a Tragedy

I could not believe what I was reading, a horrific story of just how bad the human race can be. I honestly had never heard of Nanking and I've read several books on WWII. This book is graphic in its detail of just how badly the Chinese people, women in particular, we treated. I found it difficult to put the book down and would certainly recommend it.

The truth really hurts...

Iris Chang does not spare any details in this brutal narrative of the Japanese brutalization of the city of Nanking. This book can be hard to read at times due to the way in which Chang wrote it. I have never been moved by a book before, but there were times when I had to put this book down and do something else due to the graphic nature of Chang's account. No matter how disturbing it may have been, in the end it was worth it, because Chang portrayed the events in their true light, not glossed over or reduced in intensity, and this is what makes her work so great. This is one of the best historical works that I have ever read, and I read history for a living.

He who denies history............

.....is condemned to repeat it. I remember the storm of controversy over this book when it came out ten years ago, and the torrent of abuse that Miss Chang had to take. Some, like G. Gordon Liddy, openly supported her, but too many did not. While no reasonable person today denies the German murder of Jews, many highly placed people still deny that over a six week period begining December 13, 1937, the Japanese army murdered upwards of 400,000 Chinese in Nanking...they did, and Miss Chang has the evidence to prove it.....

When WWII ended, German war criminals were made to pay the price, or to become hunted fugitives. Some Japanese leaders, did, indeed, hang for their crimes, but many, of high rank and low, lived openly while proclaiming their deeds. You see, we needed Japan as a trading partner, and, besides, China had gone over to the Dark Side. Is that so strange to us? Phil Sheridan and David Hunter lived out their days with "respect", and if Beast Butler was held in contempt by his own troops, he was still able to hold political office. And no Union soldier ever paid for his war crimes, which I admit are nothing in comparison with the story told here. Miss Chang was right; the capacity for atrocity exists in EVERY nation, and race.

In the midst of great evil, there was still great good...the International Safety Zone, organized and run by Nazi businessman John Rabe, saved around 200,000 lives. Oskar Schindler is renown, as he should be, but John Rabe is known to but few. [The parallels between Schindler and Rabe are uncanny, and , ultimately, sad].

I think Miss Chang missed the boat on one or two points; she accepts religion as a motivation for murder in China, but dismisses it in Germany; it is true that Germany was Christianized, but the Lutheran Church had embraced Augustinian Amillenialism, which ultimately makes the Jew an unperson, then makes it OK to kill him. Read Martin Luther...a truly vile anti-Semite....

This is one of the most profound books I have ever read...you NEED to read it, though, be warned, it will make you sick. The documented detail is too great to refute, and those who deny the Nanking massacre need to be marginalized with the Nazi Holocaust deniers. God rest Iris Chang's soul...in the end, it was too much for her to live with...may it be too much for all of us to tolerate....Never Again....

70 years later

Reading Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking", it staggers the mind to think that the brutality she describes is even imaginable. Yet, as countless records and testimonies have shown, the cruelty of the Japanese forces in Nanking (Nanjing) was real and should not be overlooked or ignored by history. By the end of the Japanese occupation, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were murdered in cold blood, many after being raped and tortured. This book tells the harrowing story of those who died, those who did the killing, and those who bravely worked to save Nanjing and it's inhabitants from certain death.

This is not an easy book to read. Iris Chang provides grisly details about the most inhuman acts of violence documented during the occupation. The accounts she gives are both shocking and unforgetable - yet, that is the point. We should understand just how evil human beings can become and strive for something better.

Of course, many will no doubt fault Iris Chang for her lack of objectivity (her family narrowly escaped the city before the Rape began). But this is not meant to be a dispassionate analysis of military movements or statistics related to population decline. Instead, this is a passionate work which is meant to call attention to one of the worse war-time atrocities in modern history. Published almost 10 years ago, the author begins her work by saying that the Rape of Nanking is largely unknown outside of Asia. Over the past decade however, I think this book has changed that, and has lead to an increased awareness of this tragedy in the West. But, as world understanding of this event has grown, the Japanese government still insists on minimizing the true scope of the Rape. It seems the only people who were influenced by the pro-Japanese propoganda which circulated in Asia during World War Two, were the Japanese themselves.

This is one of the most influential popular history books ever written. It deserves to be read by everyone, especially in an age where the brutality of war is becoming more common and more destructive.