Book Review: Eyewitnesses to Massacre, edited by Zhang Kaiyuan, from M.E. Sharpe, 2001.
Eyewitnesses to Massacre is a difficult, disturbing, rewarding book. It is vitally important to understanding the Japanese aggression which predated Pearl Harbor by years. Its calm and personal records of incremental savagery and capricious butchery foreshadow the Bataan Death March and the Hell Ships, and demonstrate that the Japanese militarists did not confine their cruelty to Caucasian prisoners of war. They were equal opportunity robbers and rapists and treated everyone this way regardless of race.
Eyewitnesses to Massacre builds on diaries, letters, news bulletins, war criminal trial testimony, and interviews with American missionaries active in Nanking in the late 1930s. They describe on a day-to-day basis the confused withdrawal of the Chinese army, the arrival of the Japanese victors, and a growing storm of atrocities.
To understand the enormity of this horror, think of The Killing Fields in slow motion. First every ex-soldier and anyone looking like one was rounded up and machine-gunned or grenaded or burned or used for bayonet practice. Then Japanese soldiers started entering houses, buildings, and compounds, ostensibly looking for soldiers, but in reality casing out locations and seeking women. Wives and daughters are raped and/or abducted. Individuals and groups of Japanese start looting, using their bayonets and rifles in the face of any perceived opposition. Opium starts appearing on the streets (to fund puppet governments). Businesses are pillaged and burned. Infrastructure specialists (such as power plant staff) are driven off or killed. Embassies are entered and looted. Japanese proclamations of sanctuary are torn down by Japanese soldiers. A German resident flaunts his Nazi armband to assist threatened American missionaries. Japanese consular officials are powerless to influence the mad-dog behavior of their compatriots. Throughout all this there is a cast of thousands, a Longest-Day-sized cast of victims of robbery, rape, looting, and bombing. Of course (how could it be otherwise?) the saving efforts by missionaries contrast sharply with complete ineffectuality of their own countries’ diplomats.
Japan's legacy of barbarism is refracted through the experience of ten missionaries, in their diary entries, letters, and ever war-crime testimony.
Reading about similar events through the eyes of so many different participants is fascinating since each has a unique perspective and insight into the accelerating pace of destruction. And while the missionaries are isolated in an urban battlefield for months at a time, with no help from the outside, their faith remains unperturbed. Indeed, it empowers them to support and safeguard thousands of lives; amazingly their worldview is only strengthened by the surrounding savagery. However, there is nothing pollyannaish about them, some of the most moving portions of this book record their inner struggles to come to terms with massacre, their responsibilities, their commitments, and their struggle to hate evil but not evildoers. Few ever had their faith so aggressively and severely tested.
To this day Japanese schoolbooks find it hard to confront this heritage of casual cruelty and it is certainly easy to see why. Eyewitnesses to Massacre is not easy or pleasant reading. But it illuminates the Japanese role in Asia in the same way that the diary of Anne Frank helps us see the Nazi evil in action. And it shows us the relentless power and ingenuity of good in fighting evil.
Next time someone at the Smithsonian starts babbling about how the Japanese went to war to protect their unique way of life, share a few stories from this riveting book of personal experiences.
Eyewitnesses to Massacre builds on diaries, letters, news bulletins, war criminal trial testimony, and interviews with American missionaries active in Nanking in the late 1930s. They describe on a day-to-day basis the confused withdrawal of the Chinese army, the arrival of the Japanese victors, and a growing storm of atrocities.
To understand the enormity of this horror, think of The Killing Fields in slow motion. First every ex-soldier and anyone looking like one was rounded up and machine-gunned or grenaded or burned or used for bayonet practice. Then Japanese soldiers started entering houses, buildings, and compounds, ostensibly looking for soldiers, but in reality casing out locations and seeking women. Wives and daughters are raped and/or abducted. Individuals and groups of Japanese start looting, using their bayonets and rifles in the face of any perceived opposition. Opium starts appearing on the streets (to fund puppet governments). Businesses are pillaged and burned. Infrastructure specialists (such as power plant staff) are driven off or killed. Embassies are entered and looted. Japanese proclamations of sanctuary are torn down by Japanese soldiers. A German resident flaunts his Nazi armband to assist threatened American missionaries. Japanese consular officials are powerless to influence the mad-dog behavior of their compatriots. Throughout all this there is a cast of thousands, a Longest-Day-sized cast of victims of robbery, rape, looting, and bombing. Of course (how could it be otherwise?) the saving efforts by missionaries contrast sharply with complete ineffectuality of their own countries’ diplomats.
Japan's legacy of barbarism is refracted through the experience of ten missionaries, in their diary entries, letters, and ever war-crime testimony.
Reading about similar events through the eyes of so many different participants is fascinating since each has a unique perspective and insight into the accelerating pace of destruction. And while the missionaries are isolated in an urban battlefield for months at a time, with no help from the outside, their faith remains unperturbed. Indeed, it empowers them to support and safeguard thousands of lives; amazingly their worldview is only strengthened by the surrounding savagery. However, there is nothing pollyannaish about them, some of the most moving portions of this book record their inner struggles to come to terms with massacre, their responsibilities, their commitments, and their struggle to hate evil but not evildoers. Few ever had their faith so aggressively and severely tested.
To this day Japanese schoolbooks find it hard to confront this heritage of casual cruelty and it is certainly easy to see why. Eyewitnesses to Massacre is not easy or pleasant reading. But it illuminates the Japanese role in Asia in the same way that the diary of Anne Frank helps us see the Nazi evil in action. And it shows us the relentless power and ingenuity of good in fighting evil.
Next time someone at the Smithsonian starts babbling about how the Japanese went to war to protect their unique way of life, share a few stories from this riveting book of personal experiences.
posted by Prospero at 7:07 AM
1 Comments:
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