They spoke Monday from Tokyo to a global Internet audience, and over a satellite video link with an audience at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. The former soldiers responded to questions submitted by the Los Angeles audience. Their answers included chilling details and were often emotional. I would like a judge to punish me. That is the only way I can repent.
Punishment is unlikely.
Immediately after the war, several high-ranking Japanese army officers were executed as war criminals because of the slaughter in Nanking, now called Nanjing. But some in Japan, including national politicians, insist the slaughter never took place. The veterans who participated in the event are among a small group of witnesses and participants who have voluntarily come forward and told their stories. Japanese troops captured China's then-capital Nanking in December 1937. Over several months they looted homes and shops, burned buildings and slaughtered as many as 300,000 people.