Iris Chang. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: Penguin Books, 1998, 290 pp. ISBN: 0-14-027744-7, available in paperback $14.95.

For Americans, World War II began in 1941 with an attack upon Pearl Harbor. For Europeans, it dates back to 1939 and Hitler's attack on Poland. But long before these infamous dates there was already a war brewing in East Asia, as Japan took its first fateful step toward military domination by occupying Manchuria in 1931. The Japanese made their way through China, reaching Nanking in 1937. On December 13, as Nanking fell to the Japanese, the nightmare began. This was not the first time that the Chinese had encountered foreign invaders, but it was the most brutal. The atrocities depicted in this landmark account of what became known as the Rape of Nanking are - at best - barely fathomable by those of us who have not experienced such horror.

In The Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang meticulously delineates a holocaust that has been all but forgotten. Her parents lived through the war in China and then fled with their families in an attempt to find safety. Chang was born in their new home in America, and this is where she first began to learn of the horrors her people had lived through. Until the publication of this book, there had been a significant void in scholarly works concerning this episode of terror. Chang reveals new research that had been overlooked or unavailable previously. She provides an account of the other holocaust of WWII which prior to this time was virtually ignored.

Chang is able to coherently depict in words things that are unimaginable. Some instances in the book are hard to read, while others you must read twice - just to convince yourself that the grotesque barbarity portrayed on these pages really did occur. There are many striking similarities between the Chinese massacre by the Japanese and the concurrent genocide of the Jews in Europe. Medical experiments, rapes, mass executions, and other unthinkable acts were performed by the perpetrators in both instances. However, there are also stark distinctions as well. One important point to keep in mind is that, although Hitler's regime culminated in the destruction of 6 million Jews and countless others, the massacre in Nanking lasted only a matter of weeks rather than several years. The lives lost in Nanking alone outnumber those lost by some entire countries during the war; and they total more than the combined deaths of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is difficult to reiterate her poignant accounts of human mutilation and torture, but one passage gives somewhat of an idea of what went on.

For months the streets of the city were heaped with corpses and reeked with the stench of rotting human flesh…Tens of thousands of young men were...mowed down by machine guns. Chinese men were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests. An estimated 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds. (p. 6)

There are disturbing descriptions of the Japanese army filling tank traps with bodies in order to drive over them and gain access to the city, as well as stories of raping virgins to "become more powerful in battle." (p. 49) Chang, however, tells not only of these tragedies but also of the heroic efforts of a handful of foreigners who fought to save the residents of Nanking and to tell the world what was going on. There is even the story of a Nazi, John Rabe, who orchestrated the saving of many lives and even wrote to Hitler in search of help.

I cannot stress enough the importance of this book in this age of detachment and misinformation. It is absolutely perilous to forget the past. In this time of Holocaust deniers and of those who revise or embellish history to fit their own agendas, it is increasingly imperative to provide accurate accounts of historical facts. The Rape on Nanking does just that. Chang provides factual statistics amidst heartwrenching stories of crimes against humanity. This gives a strong, objective foundation and evidential proof to those who might wish to deny the occurrences that she depicts.

Chang's book will evoke emotions that may have been tucked safely away. It will expose to the bewildered and horrified reader the hideous extent to which Man can be so unjust to Man. But, to avoid this book in order to save oneself from overpowering emotions is to avoid truth in favor of ignorance. Turning a blind eye on our past will only give it the opportunity to sneak up on us once again.

Aimée-Jo Thoroughgood
HGPS 201 student