HistoryDiff

In December 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces occupied Nanjing, then the capital of China. Over the next few weeks, large-scale atrocities were committed by Japanese soldiers.

In American textbooks, this event is commonly described as ``The Rape of Nanking''. It is written from a third-party perspective that after the Japanese military occupied Nanjing, they killed tens to hundreds of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war, and carried out widespread looting and sexual violence. The number of victims is generally quoted with a range of estimates ranging from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, and some textbooks mention that there is debate among historians about the exact number.

Also, emphasis is placed on the recording and reporting of the incident by Western diplomats, missionaries, and journalists who were staying in Nanjing at the time. In particular, the story is sometimes introduced of how the Nanjing International Safety Zone, which was founded by German John Rabe and American Minnie Vautrin, saved the lives of approximately 200,000 Chinese citizens. This incident is explained in the context of Japan's militaristic expansion policy during World War II, and is positioned as one of the war crimes tried in the postwar Tokyo Trials.

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