Nanjing Massacre

During the **Nanjing Massacre** in December 1937 and January 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army killed up to 300,000 including the rape of around 20,000 people

Following these orders, the Japanese Army massacred Chinese people who were not soldiers and captured Chinese soldiers who did not have weapons. They also forced people to work without pay, looted the city, and destroyed over a third of its buildings. 
* murdered Chinese civilians;
* murdered Chinese soldiers who had given up their weapons;
* stole and looted whatever they wanted;
* set buildings on fire to destroy them; and
* raped and tortured children and adults.

### Mass murder of civilians
During the six weeks of the Nanjing massacre, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) massacred between 40,000 and 300,000 people.p.&nbsp;1015

However, historians agree that the Imperial Japanese Army began massacring Chinese civilians the day they entered Nanjing.  On that day, John Rabe, a German businessman and Nazi Party member, wrote in his diary: "We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people had ... been [running away] and were shot from behind."  They left their bodies in a trench they named the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch."  Most historians think that more than 12,000 people were killed in this massacre.  The IJA also massacred about 100 Hui people (members of a minority group in China who are mostly Muslim).

### Torture of civilians
 bury Chinese civilians alive]]
For the entire six weeks of the Massacre, the Imperial Japanese Army kept killing Chinese civilians.  They killed in cruel,  ways and often tortured their victims before killing them.

For example, in 1984, ex-IJA soldier Kozo Tadokoro admitted: 

Another ex-soldier named Nagatoni admitted that Japanese soldiers tortured people to death by doing things like:  The soldiers shot anyone who tried to stop them.p.&nbsp;77

Right after they raped the women, the Japanese soldiers would often kill them, sometimes by mutilating their sex organs.

One survivor of the massacre said that sons were forced to rape their mothers, and fathers were forced to rape their daughters.  One group of soldiers gang-raped a pregnant woman, who gave birth only a few hours later (the baby did not seem to be hurt).  Japanese soldiers also raped Buddhist nuns and forced monks to rape women.

#### Witnesses' stories
On 19 December 1937, the Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:

Another witness to the rapes in Nanjing was Robert O. Wilson.  He was a surgeon at an American hospital in Nanjing.  On December 15 and 18, 1937, he wrote to his family:

### Killing of prisoners of war
]]
Starting in 1931, an international law called the Third Geneva Convention made it illegal to treat prisoners of war in certain ways.  It said these prisoners had rights  for example, the right to have a trial before being executed.  However, in August 1937, Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan, had decided that neither he nor the army would follow any international laws about how Chinese prisoners of war had to be treated.

Right after the IJA took over Nanjing, they started searching for ex-Chinese soldiers.  They took thousands of young men as prisoners.  Some of these men were never soldiers; the IJA just  they were.  Without any trials, the IJA took many of these young men to the Yangtze River and killed them with machine guns.

According to  made by former IJA soldiers, on December 13 and 14, 1937, a unit of IJA soldiers took 14,777 Chinese prisoners of war.  In the next few days, they took another 2,0003,000 prisoners.  They destroyed newly built government buildings as well as many civilians'  homes.  Soldiers also stole whatever they wanted.  Because the Imperial Japanese Army was so much stronger than the Chinese soldiers and civilians in Nanjing, the Chinese could not fight back.  This meant the Japanese could take all of the city's  things for themselves.

## Trial and punishment
On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers.  This ended World War II.

Soon after this, the Allied Powers began creating international military courts. To try Japan's leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, they created the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE).

### International Military Tribunal for the Far East
 in Tokyo]]

Three of the Japanese Imperial Army's leaders in Nanjing were put on trial at the IMTFE:

## Denial
The Nanjing Massacre is still very controversial in Japan.  Very few Japanese writers claim the Massacre never happened at all.  Most of the argument over the massacre has to do with how many Chinese people died.  Some scholars say that many fewer Chinese people died than most historians say.  For example, Japanese writer Tanaka Masaaki says that only a few hundred civilians died in Nanjing.

As of 2014, Japan still honored fourteen "Class A" war criminalsincluding the three who were in charge of the Nanjing Massacreat a national shrine.

s like this one prove people were massacred at Nanjing]]
### Evidence
There is a lot of proof that the Nanjing Massacre happened the way most historians and survivors say it did.  This proof includes:
* The memories of people who survived the massacre.
* Mass graves of people who were all killed in the same way.

## Photo gallery
### During the massacre

File:Iwane Matsui rides into Nanjing.jpg|General Matsui leads IJA troops into Nanjing on December 13, 1937
File:Japanese looting near a gate, Nanking massacre.JPG|Japanese soldiers looting from stores and dead Chinese people
File:Bodies piled on the shore of Yangtze River, Nanking Massacre.jpg|Bodies piled at the Yangtze River
File:Chinese to be beheaded in Nanking Massacre.jpg|A man who refused to get women for soldiers to rape is being executed
File:Photo 13 (The "Shame" Album).jpg|A photo taken and saved by a Chinese person working in a photo shop in Nanjing

### Trial and punishment

File:IMTFE court chamber.jpg|The International Military Tribunal for the Far East at work (1946)
File:Nanjing Tribunal investigates remains of Nanjing Massacre victims 3.jpg|The Nanjing Tribunal looks at the skeletons of massacre victims (1946)
File:Tani Hisao on trial 1.jpg|Hisao Tani on trial in Nanjing (1947)
File:Execution of Tani Hisao 1.jpg|Hisao Tani being taken to his execution (1947)

### Memorials: The Nanjing Massacre Museum

File:The monument in the front of Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (20090614 9921).jpg|Memorial statue in front of the Museum
File:Skeletons, Nanjing Massacre.jpg|A mass grave of massacre victims that was found underground when the Museum was being built
File:Nanjing massacre low relief1.jpg|Memorial sculpture at the Museum
File:Eternal flame, Nanjing massacre memorial.jpg|"Eternal (always-burning) flame" honoring the dead
File:Nanjing massacre footprints of survivors.jpg|"Footprints of massacre survivors" memorial

## Related pages 
* World War II
** Second Sino-Japanese War
* Empire of Japan
** Imperial Japanese Army
* War crimes
* Crimes against humanity

## Notes
## References