Before Now After

What happened in Nanjing in 1937-38?

AIMS
WHAT: Understand the events in China in 1937
WHY: So we can assess your understanding of interpretation
HOW: Do you understand how we can judge if an interpretation is valid?
What happened after the Manchurian invasion? The Second
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
 Extend your knowledge
Use the History.Com website find the answers to the following
questions

1. How many women were hurt in the city? How many died?
2. Why was the city of Nanjing important?
3. Why was the city undefended? Write your answers
in FULL SENTENCES
4. Why didn’t all civilians leave?
5. What was the ‘safety zone?’
6. What was the effect on the following:
a) Chinese soldiers b) women c) elderly and infants d)
buildings https://www.history.com/topics/japan/
nanjing-massacre
7. Why was the safety zone closed?
8. How was the city ruled after 1938?
 Is this interpretation……………….
Impossible to
judge
Unlikely
Likely

Impossible

Definite

EXT. task – read the BBC

article ‘Scarred by How do I test an interpretation?
history: The Rape of Who produced it? When?
Nanjing’. Does this Where? WHY?
article corroborate or Can I test it using my own
challenge what you knowledge/other sources?
read on History.com?
Plenary: How do you think that the Chinese government
marked the 80th Anniversary of Nanjing last year?

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCwdG
vg91s
Lesson 2
Recap: What happened in Nanjing?

According to
our
website…
 What happened in Nanjing in 1937-38?

AIMS
WHAT: Understand the events in China in 1937
WHY: So we can assess your understanding of interpretation
HOW: Can you test an interpretation using your own knowledge? Can you judge if
you think an interpretation is valid?
 Interpretation
• Shiro Azuma, Imperial
Japanese Army, Nanjing,
1937
• A private soldier who
kept a diary during the
massacre
• He himself killed several
captured Chinese soldiers
and later regretted what
he had done
 “It was mass murder. When I went to the Yangtze river, corpses
just covered the ground. I couldn’t help stepping on them to go to
the boat. The number was limitless. Some people never examine
their conscience. They want to say that I’m exaggerating, that
there was no massacre at Nanjing. There are people who try to
play down what we had done and I have to fight against them. If
we don’t reflect on our actions, we never improve…the Japanese
have never reconciled themselves to what they’ve done in the
past. Hitler thought the Germans were a chosen people and the
Jewish race were inferior. They discriminated against other races
too. We did the same. The Japanese were superior, the Chinese
inferior…We despised the Chinese. That’s why we could be so
cruel to them. Because we were so overpopulated, we didn’t take
human life seriously. We didn’t respect ourselves, so why should
we have cared for the Chinese?”
 Testing an Interpretation

• Sort them into two

• Do the sources support groups – those that
Azuma’s account? support his account and
those that challenge it

EXT. task – how reliable are the sources? Use the

provenance and your own knowledge to test their
reliability
 Judging if an interpretation is valid

• Make a final decision on Azuma’s account,

using your notes from last week and the
sources you have analysed today
Is this interpretation……………….
Impossible to
judge
Unlikely
Likely

Impossible

Definite
 Judging if an interpretation is valid

P: Shiro Azuma’s interpretation is impossible / unlikely /

likely / definitely true
E: For example it says that… Source ___ supports /
contradicts this, by…
This is supported/contradicted by… (include
some own knowledge)
A: This therefore shows that… The sources
selected are reliable / unreliable, which means that…
 Plenary
• How could we find out what
really happened? What barriers
might we face if we wanted to
investigate?

• Watch this film clip of a teacher

who tried to do this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLfLj75tbjk
Source A: Plaque from Nanjing Museum
Source B: A book about the events in Nanking, written by an
American historian in 1997. It claims to provide evidence of the
Japanese atrocities and was a bestseller.
Source C: Photograph of Japanese army recruits at a bayonet drill, practising
on Chinese prisoners
 Source D: A Chinese eye witness: Li Ke-hen reported to
international tribunal:

• "There are so many bodies on the street,

victims of group rape and murder.
Source E: A Japanese soldier who was there,
interviewed by Iris Chang:

• "It would be all right if we only raped

them. I shouldn't say all right. But we
always stabbed and killed them. Because
dead bodies don't talk."
 Source F:
• "Contest to kill 100
people using a
sword" published in
the Tokyo Nichi
Nichi Shimbun. The
headline reads,
'Incredible Record'
(in the Contest to Cut
Down 100 People)
Source G: American News Articles
• Source J: This photograph
appeared in the December 4,
1997 issue of Newsweek,
together with a feature article
titled: ‘The Rape of Nanking’.
• A later American magazine
using the same picture said:
"In Nanking the Japanese
turned murder into sport.
Note the smiles on the
Japanese in the background."
Source H: Photograph from Nanjing
1. The pose is fake: in order to cut down the
neck of the man sitting, the swordsman
must swing a sword from the right top to
the left bottom. For this purpose the man
must hold the right foot forward.
However, he opens both legs sideways.
He cannot swing down a sword in this
way.
2. The swordsman is not Japanese: the man
posing with the sword appears to be
wearing a padded, sleeveless jacket, but
no one in the Japanese army, regardless
of rank, would ever wear such attire.
3. This is a composite photograph: compare
the directions taken by the shadow of the
soldier posing with the Japanese sword
and that of the soldier to his right. One
realizes this with the simple observation
that the two people's shadows point in
different directions
Source I: Japanese website’s response to photographic collection
in a book by Iris Chang claiming 300,000 people were raped or
murdered in Nanjing.

• Chang's efforts to have these photographs

placed in the library of every American school
outsteps the bounds of rational thinking.
Having examined all 34 photographs in ‘The
Rape of Nanking’, we have reached the
conclusion that not one of them constitutes
direct proof of a massacre in Nanking.
http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/exploding12.html
Source J
One of 16 photos that allegedly
show a Japanese soldier beheading
a Chinese man. However, Professor
Higashinakano has pointed out,
“This is a Chinese fabrication.” While
the Nanjing Massacre allegedly
happened during the winter, the
Japanese soldiers are lightly
dressed, and some even have their
sleeves rolled up. The shoes of the
man in front of the picture aren’t
military attire either.
Source K:
 Source L: Diary of Tsen-Shui Fang, found in
Dec 2001 at the age of 62
• Tsen’s diary is full of hearsay, such as “from
what I hear” and “it appears that,” and lacks
first-hand accounts of the atrocities. In the
one instance where she witnessed sexual
violence, it is not clear as to whether the
perpetrators were really Japanese soldiers.

• http://eng.the-liberty.com/2015/5778/
 Source M: Nanjing birth records
Kenichi Ara, a researcher of modern and
contemporary history, pointed out,
“According to birth records from Nanjing,
there was no rise in births in October 1938,
or abortions in the preceding months.”
 Source N: Japanese soldiers testimony
• Japanese soldiers such as Hisao Ota and Hiroyuki Nagatomi
are said to have been involved with the Nanjing Massacre.
Ota stated that he witnessed the Japanese Army disposing of
150,000 corpses. Some Japanese soldiers had been in
prison for a long time after the war, and their confessions and
memories may have been affected by their experiences in
prison. According to sources such as China’s Xinhua News
Agency, after Japan’s defeat, Japanese soldiers, who had
been in prison for years, were taught new views such as
“Japan is imperialist”. They were forced to write confessions.

• http://eng.the-liberty.com/2015/5778/
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