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There was an apology by the Japanese Prime Minister in 1995, but most Chinese feel that apology was weak, hardly enough. What do people want?
At a minimum, what the Asian community wants from the Japanese is a full and sincere apology to all of its victims from World War II. Reparations for victims. A guarantee that the next generation of Japanese schoolchildren will be taught the full extent of wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese. That's a good start. Right now, in Germany, it's against the law not to teach the Holocaust in public schools. Contrast this with Japan, which for decades has systematically covered [Japanese war crimes] up. They whitewashed it from their textbooks. ... During the rape of Nanking--just that incident alone--the number of deaths that resulted surpasses the death toll, the immediate death toll, of the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. That's just one incident. And the rape of Nanking was not a unique and isolated incident. There were so many similar atrocities that occurred all throughout China. So few people even know about [them].
At a minimum, what the Asian community wants from the Japanese is a full and sincere apology to all of its victims from World War II. Reparations for victims. A guarantee that the next generation of Japanese schoolchildren will be taught the full extent of wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese. That's a good start. Right now, in Germany, it's against the law not to teach the Holocaust in public schools. Contrast this with Japan, which for decades has systematically covered [Japanese war crimes] up. They whitewashed it from their textbooks. ... During the rape of Nanking--just that incident alone--the number of deaths that resulted surpasses the death toll, the immediate death toll, of the victims of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. That's just one incident. And the rape of Nanking was not a unique and isolated incident. There were so many similar atrocities that occurred all throughout China. So few people even know about [them].
No doubt that Japan isn't the only country that's lied about its history. China has done it as well, not to mention the States, and heck, even Canada!
But do two wrongs make a right? The Japanese government is still removing all blemishes from their history and feeding mistruths to their youths.
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What did you learn had happened in Nanking?
In Nanking, babies were thrown in the air and bayoneted on the way down. Some people were buried waist deep and torn apart by German shepherds. People were killed in any manner you could imagine. I mean, fire, freezing, mutilation, explosion. ... Prisoners were used for bayonet practice. Women's breasts were cut off. Men were castrated. I have read accounts of tanks being stuck, not able to go across a ditch because the ditch was empty, and so they would round up all the civilians in the area, men, women, children, and shoot them all down and they'd put their bodies in the ditch so the tank could go over it. I could go on for days. ... It was horrifying. ... And it's amazing how some of the people survived. Women hid in holes in the ground. Some women dressed in rags, or shaved their heads and smeared soot over their faces so they would appear to be too ugly or diseased to be raped. ... There were people who pretended to be dead, then clawed their way out of half-buried graves or hid under mounds of bodies. I read one account in which a Buddhist nun and a little girl hid for several days, almost a week, and they didn't dare open their eyes. And they were covered with other bodies. They just lay like that, pretending to be dead, until they were rescued later.
In Nanking, babies were thrown in the air and bayoneted on the way down. Some people were buried waist deep and torn apart by German shepherds. People were killed in any manner you could imagine. I mean, fire, freezing, mutilation, explosion. ... Prisoners were used for bayonet practice. Women's breasts were cut off. Men were castrated. I have read accounts of tanks being stuck, not able to go across a ditch because the ditch was empty, and so they would round up all the civilians in the area, men, women, children, and shoot them all down and they'd put their bodies in the ditch so the tank could go over it. I could go on for days. ... It was horrifying. ... And it's amazing how some of the people survived. Women hid in holes in the ground. Some women dressed in rags, or shaved their heads and smeared soot over their faces so they would appear to be too ugly or diseased to be raped. ... There were people who pretended to be dead, then clawed their way out of half-buried graves or hid under mounds of bodies. I read one account in which a Buddhist nun and a little girl hid for several days, almost a week, and they didn't dare open their eyes. And they were covered with other bodies. They just lay like that, pretending to be dead, until they were rescued later.
That's damn ******** up. And still, people are just running around saying, "Oh well CHINA sure don't have a perfect track record." Sure thing, but with that shallow excuse, you're going to get those images of innocents dying in brutal, disgusting ways?! You've got to be seriously messed up in the brains to not feel a mite of sickness at what was described up there. stare
Community Member
hopefully they will do something to make a significant reparation for that atrocity. those kinds of things are too horrible not to be forgotten, we need to remember them so it won't ever happen again.