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The Nanjing Massacre. One of history’s darkest, crulest episodes. You might not consider this history’s worst war crime, but it’s likely the worst you’ve never heard of. Often compared to the Holocaust in 1937, Naning, China’s capital was hell on earth. During the Japanese takeover, approximately 200,000 to 300,000 people were killed and tens of thousands of women were sexually assaulted. These are big numbers. so vast that our brains might not be able to fully comprehend the gravity of it. So, let’s try another
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perspective. This will get graphic, so feel free to skip ahead to this time if you’d like. Iris Chang, author of a bestselling book on the Nanzing Massacre, writes, “One historian estimated that if the dead from Nanzing were to link hands, they would stretch from Nanzing to the city of Hul, spanning a distance of some 200 m. Their bodies would fill 2500 railroad cars stacked on top of each other. These bodies would reach the height of a 74story building. Such destruction and death was carried out in an unbelievably
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short amount of time. Within only 3 weeks, Naning went from one of China’s greatest literary, artistic, and political centers to a city ravaged, its people brutally murdered, viewed by the Japanese military as pigs for slaughter. women were sexually assaulted. No woman was considered too old and of course none too young. When wrote in his poem in time of war and maps can really point to places where life is evil now. To really understand the evil that occurred, we must take a closer look at
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the Nanting massacre. What exactly happened during the three darkest weeks in Nanting’s history? And why despite such horror did it not ignite the fury of the world? We all rightfully mourn and remember the Holocaust, but very few know of Nanting. And finally, what is China planning? Because this year they’re determined to shake things up. The first part focused on the Nanting massacre will be the hardest part to listen to. There will be no graphic images, but if you can handle the descriptions, I strongly recommend
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sticking through. If not, I’ll give a timestamp later to skip ahead to when the explicit sections start. Let’s talk about what happened to the people of Naning and what Japanese soldiers told themselves as they slaughtered a city. [Applause] Naning was the capital of nationalist China and the Japanese intended to crush it. When the Japanese army reached the city after conquering Shanghai, they faced almost no resistance. Most of the defending soldiers were barely trained and surrendered easily, lured by
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promises of fair treatment. Then they were separated into groups of 100 or two, led away and shot. With the soldiers executed, nothing stood between the Japanese invaders and the people of Naning. The city was now at the mercy of an army that would show none. If you’re uncomfortable with accounts of torture or rape, please skip ahead to this timestamp as we discuss how ordinary people, Japanese soldiers, can commit such heinous acts. To kill 200,000 people in 3 weeks is almost unimaginable. One Japanese war reporter
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wrote, “Blood splattered everywhere. The chilling atmosphere made one’s hair stand on end and limbs tremble with fear.
To scare or horrify someone.
The screams coming from the old, dark house made my hair stand on end.
When we go camping, every little noise outside my tent makes my hair stand on end. It could be a bear, after all!
I stood there at a total loss and did not know what to do.”
not knowing what to say or do 不知所措；困惑
His comments left me at a loss for words.I’m at a loss what to do next.
In district after district, men judged of military age were rounded up in batches, marched to the river banks or vacant lots and machine gunned in rows.
to find and gather together people, animals or things
I rounded up a few friends for a party.
我找了几个朋友聚了聚。
The cattle are rounded up in the evenings.
到了晚上，牛都要圈起来。if police or soldiers round up a group of people, they find them and arrest or capture them 围捕；围剿
gun someone down: shoot someone with a gun枪杀, 向…开枪：
they were gunned down by masked snipers.他们被蒙面狙击手射杀。
The wounded were finished with bayonets and the bodies were burned or pushed into the Yangy River to hasten disposal. For days, elders told their children the Yangy
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River ran red. In the midst of this slaughter, killing was sometimes turned into a contest. Japanese newspapers reported competitions to see who could kill 100 Chinese first. One such contest ended with a score of 106 to 105. These were human lives, yet they were reduced to nothing more than tally marks on a scoreboard.
Link to originalreˈduce sb/sth (from sth) to sth/to doing sth
[usually passive] to force sb/sth into a particular state or condition, usually a worse one 使陷入（更坏的）境地；使沦落；使陷入窘境
a beautiful building reduced to rubbleShe was reduced to tears by their criticisms.
They were reduced to begging in the streets.
And death did not always come swiftly. Some accounts describe victims being tortured, set on fire, or buried up to their waist and then torn apart by dogs. Survival also did not
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mean safety. For many, especially women, it meant entering a different kind of hell. One Japanese soldier recalled, “Women suffered most. No matter how young or old, they all could not escape the fate of being sexually assaulted. Women’s suffering was devastating and deeply humiliating.” Former Japanese soldier Azam Shiro described how soldiers perpetrated these acts. At first, we used words like pankan. P means hip. Kankan means look. Pankan means let’s see a woman open up her
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legs. After a while, we’d say, “It’s my day to take a bath.” And take turns sexually assaulting. Crimes like these happened everywhere and at all hours. Chinese women were not seen as human. Azimma says, “Perhaps when we were sexually assaulting her, we looked at her as a woman, but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig.” I also want to note that not all victims were women. Chinese men were also sexually assaulted and forced into humiliating acts by laughing Japanese
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soldiers. There are many such accounts of cruelty. I don’t intend to dwell on these horrors, but it’s important to comprehend the depth of suffering during this time. One Japanese soldier, Nagati, confessed, “Few know that soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them, still alive, into pots of boiling water. They g women from the ages of 12 to 80 and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burned them, and buried
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them alive. Over 200 in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil. This was a time of war, but such cruelty is hard to reconcile with modern perceptions of Japanese culture. so often seen as polite and respectful which raises the question does war bring out the worst in people as it did in Naning and what factors could make that happen there are three things worth exploring here when it comes to the Japanese bushido the way
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of the samurai and its influence on Japanese men the indoctrination of troops from an early age and the Japanese military environment during the war let’s start with buso the samurai class in Japan and first emerged during the Han period. Samuris followed Bushido, their way of the warrior. Honor, loyalty, and self-sacrifice were central values. For the samurai, the greatest honor was to die serving their lord. If they failed, they’d commit ritual suicide, Harakiri, by painfully disemboweling themselves in
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front of witnesses. Why is Busidor relevant? At first, Busousidor values were only shared among the samurai. But when the Kamakura shogunit came to power in the 12th century, the samurai started taking up leadership roles and Bushidor values began spreading through the government and society. Over time, Bushidor wasn’t just for warriors anymore. It became a moral guide for all young men across Japan. We can see the influence of Bushidor in the World War II surrender rates. The Allies surrendered at a rate of one per three
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dead, Japanese soldiers at one per 120 dead. Or consider the Kami Kaz pilots who willingly sacrificed themselves for the emperor. These values coupled with a strict military hierarchy then became twisted and weaponized in Naning through what scholar Tanaka Yuki calls the transfer of oppression. Superiors in the Japanese military often subjected their soldiers to intense humiliation, abuse, and punishments. This was not just done if soldiers made mistakes, but often used as a routine part of training.
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Beating soldiers until they bled and making them take part in degrading tasks like washing the underwear of their superiors was thought to instill loyalty in them and to toughen them up. This brutal environment may have contributed to their increased cruelty. Powerless to resist in the military, soldiers may have internalized their resentment and fear. Then, when given power over defenseless civilians, they unleashed cruelty by repeating the same oppressive dynamics they had endured. Japanese troops were also Indoctrinated
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to believe Chinese lives were worthless. It started young. One historian recounts how a Japanese school boy burst into tears when told to dissect a frog. And in response, his teacher yelled, “Why are you crying about one lousy frog? When you grow up, you’ll have to kill 100 200.” When they grew old enough to be on the battlefield, new soldiers still often hesitated when ordered to kill. One private records none of the recruits volunteering to make the first kill when commanded by their superior. The
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superior then lost his temper, called them cowards, and said, “Not one of you is fit to call yourself a Japanese soldier.” The superior told them that Chinese people must not be seen as human. Their lives were beneath a cat or a dog. Then he would call out names and recruits would have no choice but to kill the Chinese at their feet. In addition to the constant dehumanization of Chinese people, something else to consider is the way Japanese soldiers viewed their own lives. As Mashiro recalls the saying, “Loyalty is heavier
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than a mountain, and our life is lighter than a feather.” The greatest honor a Japanese soldier could achieve during war was to come back dead. This emphasis on loyalty and duty to the emperor reduced individual Japanese soldiers to just cogs in a system. If their own lives held no meaning, why should they care or value the lives of the enemy? When you add it all up, pushido, harsh internal discipline, indoctrination, and a disregard for one’s own life. Each of these factors played a part in the
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city’s massacre. Now, I want to turn our attention to the aftermath, or rather the lack of it. Why do so few people know about the Naning Massacre? The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where hundreds of thousands of civilians died, are widely discussed, as they should be. These large-scale wartime atrocities remain everpresent reminders of the horrors of war. But the massacre in Naning is almost never mentioned, and the reason for this is not so straightforward. Because you see, after World War II, Japan wanted to keep quiet
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about the massacre. That’s expected. But China stayed low about it. Before we examine the secrecy around this issue, I wanted to bring up the lack of secrecy or privacy around another important matter, and that is our emails. Because did you know major email providers like Gmail actually can see all our data? We tend to think of emails as sealed letters that only us and the recipient can read. But really, major email providers like Gmail can access all this content. So, our emails are less like a sealed letter and more like
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a postcard. I never knew how exposed my email data was and honestly it was unsettling. If this is also making you uncomfortable too, the good news is there is a solution. Proton Mail is the world’s leading private email service based in Switzerland and is trusted by journalists, political activists, security experts, and over 100 million people worldwide. And sure, maybe you’re not a journalist sending breaking news to your editor, but your emails still deserve confidentiality. Why should
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providers be allowed to scan through your private information just to sell that data to advertisers? Proton Mail was built on the belief that privacy is a human right standing apart from big tech companies that profit off your data. With so many services using and selling our information, this founding value really stood out to me. With Proton Mail, only you can access your emails. There’s no ads, no trackers, and best of all, it’s free. Switching over is seamless. And honestly, why would you
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not switch? If you care about privacy and you don’t want your data to be exploited, make the move to Proton Mail today. It’s totally free. Use my link in the description below. Thank you Proton Mail for sponsoring this video. And now back to exploring why this event was kept quiet. You’ve probably heard of the saying, “History is written by the victors.” But sometimes history isn’t written down at all. The Ning Massacre was almost forgotten until one woman decided she could not let the world
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forget. The biggest thing that prevented the Ning massacre from getting the attention it deserved is politics. And like all topics involving politics, this gets messy. Let’s take a look at Japan first. Japan, fearing damage to its reputation and international relations, downplays and at times outright denies the massacre even happened, which is crazy. Unlike Germany, where admitting the Holocaust is illegal for history teachers, in Japan, textbooks often minimize or straight up remove references to Nanzing. And when the
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Nanzing Massacre is brought up in Japan, it’s often referred to as the Nanding incident. Textbook censorship means many Japanese may never have learned about these events in school. And when war veterans like Azma Shiro speak out about their time in Nanting, they receive death threats. Azimma publicly apologized for his actions during the Naning massacre and afterwards he was forced to move to a tiny village outside Kyoto with his wife for safety. As for the government, well, there are several
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instances where the government has denied the massacre ever occurring. In 1990, politician Ishihara Shintaro stated, “People say that the Japanese made a Holocaust in Naning, but that is not true. It is a story made up by the Chinese. It has tarnished the image of Japan, but it is a lie.” Unfortunately, such dismissals of the event continue even today. Just earlier this year in July, a member of the farright Sunset Door Party outright denied the existence of the NI massacre. There are multiple historical records of
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the massacre. Testimonies from Chinese victims, even Japan’s own war veterans to continue to dismiss the massacre in the modern day and age baffles me. Thankfully, efforts to raise awareness about war atrocities like the Nancy massacre and unit 731, the human experimentation unit have occurred in Japan. Often done through local exhibitions, visitors are invited to share their thoughts after attending. I want to share with you what one Japanese school boy wrote in the 1990s after seeing one such exhibition. From the
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time I was in elementary school, I’d heard stories from people who experienced bombing raids during the Pacific War. But even though we hear from various sources about our being victims of war, there is almost no talk about Japan’s being an asalent, it is important to tell the story from both sides, especially to us in the generation that does not know war. The words of those who did experience it are most valuable. That is why it would be good to increase the places where these words could be heard. Dismissal of these
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events often comes from the government and consequently ignorance persists among the public. However, this young boy’s words demonstrate a desire to learn and confront the truth. Taking accountability is not what harms your reputation. Constant denial is. This explains in part Japan’s silence on the massacre. But what about the sight of the victim? Why did China not speak out? Again, the answer is politics. Immediately after Japan’s surrender, China was grappling with its own internal conflicts. A civil war between
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the nationalists and the communists. Political instability during this time overshadowed the Nanjing massacre. Later, when China’s political landscape stabilized, a different set of priorities came into play. In 1972, China and Japan normalized trade relations, and China formally dropped its claims to World War II reparations from Japan. This was both a moral and pragmatic choice. On the moral front, Chinese Premier Joan Li repeatedly emphasized that this was both a gesture of goodwill between the Chinese and the
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Japanese and because no amount of money could pay off the suffering that had occurred during the war. On the pragmatic front, this decision helped China and Japan develop a closer trade relationship. Japan had become one of China’s most important economic lifelines in the 1970s and 80s. Increasing the flow of trade, economic aid, loans, technology, and information between the two countries played a crucial role in developing China’s economy. And if the political agendas from Japan and China weren’t enough, US
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policy also played a part in burying the Nanjing massacre. To keep this brief, after World War II, because of the Cold War, the US wanted to contain communism and needed Japan as a capitalist ally in Asia. So, Japan didn’t face the same pressure for owning up to their war crimes as Germany did. This leniency allowed Japan to avoid full responsibility then and to some degree even now. So yeah, because of politics, memories of the massacre slowly faded until one woman refused to let it be forgotten. That woman was Iris Chang.
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It’s hard to talk about the NI massacre without mentioning her name because her book sold half a million copies and had her dubbed the best young historian of her time and brought the event back into the public spotlight. Chain’s book weaved together numerous firsthand accounts and testimonies, and her work opened the world’s eyes to a chapter of history that had almost been forgotten. Chang was invited to the White House by Hillary Clinton and featured on US talk shows like Good Morning America and
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Night Line to give talks about the massacre. Chang had written in her book after going to a conference on Naning and witnessing the depth of its horror, being panicked that the event would be reduced to a footnote in history unless someone forced the world to remember. Chang was not born in China. She was Chinese American, but she had heard of the massacre since childhood with her parents telling her stories about the event. Neither of my parents witnessed it. But as young children, they had heard the stories, and these were passed
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down to me. The Japanese, I learned, sliced babies, not just in half, but in thirds and fourths, they said. The Yang River ran red with blood for days. Her parents’ story sewed the seeds for her work on the Nanting massacre. This first encounter was also heavily covered by Chinese media as news reports highlighted the power of memories to connect generations across time, even across different countries and cultures. Chain’s unique identity as Chinese American allowed her to bridge not only
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a gap between China and the rest of the world, but to also form a link between mainland Chinese and the Chinese diaspora. Chain’s work cemented the Naning massacre as a major international trauma. And in 2004, she was in the middle of working on another book about the Batan Death March when she tragically ended her life. Her statue now stands at the entrance of the Naning Massacre Memorial Hall in China, and every visitor who goes in to pay their respects has to pass by her first. Cheng’s book sparked a wave of media
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attention around the Naning Massacre. But perhaps what we’re seeing now is the largest movement yet. This year, China is releasing two major blockbuster films set during World War II. one on the Nani massacre, another on unit 731, the infamous Japanese unit that performed human experiments on Chinese prisoners. Both movies center on Japanese war atrocities and the theme of China’s national suffering. But why are these two films being released now? And what does that reveal about China’s current
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strategy? [Music] The release of 731 and dead to Right, covering some of the darkest parts of China’s experiences in the war is no coincidence. There are three big reasons. One, this year is a special year. It marks the 80th anniversary of World War II ending. Two, geopolitical tensions are escalating. And three, this is a throwback for the OG’s. Film is a form of soft power. First, the 80th anniversary. It’s a landmark milestone since World War II. And it’s interesting because East Asian countries all tend to
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remember this time differently. For China, it means victory over Japan. For Korea, it’s liberation from Japanese oppression. And for Japan, it’s honoring the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the atomic bombing. These diverging perspectives of the war are according to Stanford sociologist Shin Kuk at the root of the many underlying political tensions between China, Korea, and Japan. And these tensions are only going to rise as the date gets closer. China sees the 80th anniversary as a day to
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remember past suffering and triumph and a time to strengthen national identity. A series of campaigns are planned to emphasize patriotism and encourage historical reflection with this all culminating in a grand military parade. Geopolitically, increasing tensions with the US, Japan, and Taiwan make it vital for China’s leadership to shore up public support. That means preparing the nation for tougher foreign policy stances like a greater willingness to use military force or threats, implementing economic sanctions, trade
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restrictions, or embargoes. Releasing World War II themed films reinforces patriotism, unity, and a readiness to defend Chinese interests if challenged. Through film, China can rally the public, push its narrative internationally, and remind citizens of past foreign aggression. The stories these films tell and the emotions they evoke help build a shared identity and actively shape collective memory. If you remember earlier, one of the Japanese soldiers, Azimma, described the term Pankan used among soldiers during acts
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of sexual assault. When I came across that term during my research, I suddenly flashed back to a scene from a Chinese wartime drama I’d watched as a kid where a Japanese soldier gleefully descended upon a helpless woman repeating pangan pangan. This isn’t a real memory of course, but seeing the word panhan triggered that thought and the feeling of fear. In ways like this, media is a powerful tool in shaping our collective memory. Films like these also have soft power value abroad. For non-Chinese,
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they may be the first exposure to events like Nanjing Massacre or Unit 731’s horrors. Imagine witnessing such atrocities, feeling relieved that the movie is over and then seeing the words based on true events. With these films, China is able to prompt an awareness of their historical trauma to foreigners and perhaps also foster an understanding in them when it comes to China’s current perspective. Films are a potent form of government messaging used by all countries, not just China. But for
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China’s younger generation who are not affected or remember World War II in the same way older generations do, pop culture retellings are often the most effective way in passing on memories of such events. Think about Chang who grew up all the way on the other side of the world in a different culture and the impact she still made because she was moved by the stories her parents shared. That curiosity changed the way the world remembered. As for me, I actually only thought of making this video because my
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grandparents were super keen on watching Dead to Write, the movie about the Naning Massacre. My family is actually from Naning, so I knew the movie would mean a lot to them. And of course, this topic also means a lot to me as well. In Chain’s book, she came to the conclusion that Japan’s behavior during World War II was less a product of dangerous people than of a dangerous government, in a vulnerable culture, in dangerous times, able to sell dangerous rationalizations to those whose human
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instincts told them otherwise. And I agree. I want to make it clear that this video is not about promoting hate. I wanted to break down the event, confront the cruelty that occurred, and still find empathy in understanding how things escalated so far. In the first part of this video, we learned about what happened in Naning, and how Japanese ethical codes like Bushido, harsh military environments and indoctrination allowed for brutality to fester and to be carried out. In the second part, we explored why the massacre went
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unnoticed, examining the motives of Japan, China, and to some degree the US. And in the last part, we see China reviving and shaping memories with blockbuster films symbolizing both historical trauma and rising tensions today. The Nunching Massacre is an undeniable part of history and though it is Confronting to remember, we should not forget. As Nobel laurate Ellie Weasel warned, to forget a Holocaust is to kill twice. If you found this video informative, please subscribe. It’s free and I cover all sorts of topics on East
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Asia here. Thank you for watching and also big thank you to my wonderful patronons for all their support. I’ll see you in the next video. Bye.