The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II

In the case of Nanking, during hardly a six-week time peak, about 350,000 civilians and s aged(prenominal)iers were slaughtered, many tortured and assail first. Chang suggests that this was more than persecution, but an example of untamedty and crimes against humanity that was cypher less than a holocaust.

The title of the book derives from the mass pillage and mutilation of women-from as young as seven to as old as 80 (and some men as well)-that occurred during the massacre. "Estimates orbit from as low as twenty thousand to as high as eighty thousand" females who were raped (89). Chang describes, principally via eyewitness accounts, the incredible sadism and brutality accompanying the rapes.

As Chang points out, Nanking was non the only Chinese city targeted for a "campaign of slaughter." The multitude assault "started in Shanghai, moved through Nanking, and proceeded inland" (215). unless the scale and temperament of the atrocities committed by the lacquerese forces in Nanking over such a short period of time were particularly horrible.

Chang ascribes the extreme brutality of the Japanese phalanx to the manner in which they were treated by their higher-ups, a scheme of "the transfer of oppression," she points out, that is held by some Japanese scholars. She cites "the arbitrary and cruel treatment that the military inflicted on its own officers and soldiers, and the hierarchical nature of Japanese society?." (217).

She also refers to the theory "that those with the least po

Religion is another factor Chang cites, take a firm stand that Japan and the imperial army considered itself to be on a holy mission, a "holy and just war that Japan happened to lose solely because of Ameri chamberpot economic power" (224-225). another(prenominal) factor is "the virtual contempt that many in the Japanese military reserved for Chinese people" (218).

Chang is of Chinese crepuscule and acknowledges her pursuance in the subject stems from her ethnic background. But her interest goes beyond the personal. She is concerned with "the frightening ease with which the mind can accept genocide, turning us all into passive spectators to the inconceivable" (221). She brings up the contemporary international response to the atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina (and would no doubt include the Sudan if writing the book today) as a parallel to Nanking. The world watches, but does not act create evil to become banal. This may be the ultimate lesson learned from Nanking.

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