One of the most gruesome historic displays of human cruelty, an event that led to the death of more people than the Roman Conquest of Carthage and the Spanish Inquisition, is almost non-existent in the historical record.
"Asia at Noon," a lecture series sponsored by the UB Asian Studies Department, featured a lecture by Mark Sheldon, professor of history and sociology at Binghamton University and Cornell University, last Friday on the Nanjing Massacre . The lecture reflected on the harrowing event and its impact on Chinese and Japanese society.
"I am particularly interested in historical memory, how Americans and Japanese remember wars and conflicts, how they were created and perceived," said Sheldon. "I have also always been interested in human rights and how international law defines human rights, therefore, my project is from a this humanist angle."
Scholars and journalists have compared the Nanjing Massacre to the Holocaust in Germany.
The massacre, which began in 1937, resulted from a swelling population and a declining Japanese economy. Japan unleashed a vigorous campaign to colonize China during the late 1920s, and after the siege of Manchuria and Shanghai the Japanese entered Nanjing, where the military began to slaughter more than 100,000 people.
Victims were often subject to torture and rape before being killed. An underground system of military prostitution was instituted in "comfort houses," which prostituted women who were kidnapped or purchased from various parts of Asia.
In addition, the December 1937 issue of the Japan Advertiser reported that the Japanese military were holding killing contests and that two ranking officers were engaged in a competition to see who could behead 100 Chinese civilians first.
Despite the atrocities that took place in Nanjing, the event has been nearly eradicated from historical records; even Winston Churchill's memoirs of WWII and The American Heritage Picture of WWII, billed as "the largest, most inclusive single-volume picture history of the war," do not include accounts of the event.
"The U.S. didn't care about this event," said Sheldon. "The attitude was that they were just Chinese and we had nothing to do with it."
A surge of activism beginning in the early '90s, however, has drawn attention to the Nanjing Massacre. Several Chinese organizations have emerged in a neo-nationalist movement to demand reparations from Japan.
The Japanese Fellowship for Reconciliation, a non-governmental group, has issued an apology, conceding to the wartime atrocities and pleading for forgiveness.
Ono Kenji, a Japanese farmer, has conducted over 600 interviews with former Japanese soldiers involved in the incident.
In 1996, the U.S. Department of Justice established a watch list of Japanese war criminals in order to bar them entering the country. A great deal of scholarly research and media attention has been dedicated to the event.
The massacre gained public awareness in 1997 when Iris Chang wrote "The Rape of Nanjing," documenting the turbulent event.
Despite the increased attention the massacre as garnered, the Japanese government has not issued a formal apology and only a handful of war criminals have been tried and convicted.
In 1944, the United Nations created the Investigation of War Crimes Committee. At this time, the Japanese government decided to comply with the Chinese and gather information about the massacre.
Three defendants were brought to trial, including two lieutenants and one lieutenant general. The three were found guilty and executed.
In 1946, during a war crimes trail, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East concluded that the Japanese government had been aware of the atrocities of the massacre and denounced the Japanese for allowing the incident to take place.
However, only one commander was tried and convicted and the Japanese government still has not paid reparations for the war crimes.
Sheldon believes the U.S. should take a multilateral approach concerning the affairs between Japan and China.
"I think the U.S. should take a world role," he said. "The U.S. should set standard ethical principles in the defense of non-combatants and use its power to encourage these nations to come to terms with their dark pasts in order to build more effective relations with these two nations."
