The Japanese Imperial Army soldiers
found my mother
And they wanted to rape my mother
My mother resisted
She fought back
still carrying my little brother
carrying my one-year-old brother
Those Japanese soldiers
snatched my brother from my mother
and smashed him to death on the ground
As soon as my mother rushed over
the Japanese soldiers grabbed their guns
and fired off two shots at my mother
My mother was shot to death right there
two days later
they discovered my father
and captured him
My father was taken away by them in 1937
He never came back
Two days after they took away my father
they saw my second eldest sister
after they spotted her they snatched her
and wanted to rape her
My sister resisted she tried to fight them off
one soldier drew out his long sword
and butchered my thirteen-year-old sister
After he slashed her we saw my sister's corpse
Her head had been chopped into two halves
From then on it was just me and my fifth brother
The two of us We cried every day
What struck me was
not only did these survivors have to live with these
physical and psychic scars
but most of them were dirt poor
Poverty-stricken beyond belief
They were crammed into these tiny rooms
they had nothing
Just a little child
they took it all away
your blood your life
your trust your faith
You died reborn in pain
Red as the river
looming large the gate
darkness in your heart
drowning in hate
I'll dedicate my life to get your stories told
I'll give voice to the voiceless
silenced for too long
Crying out for justice
silenced for too long
Trust me with your pain
I'll take it as my own
I'll fight to get the truth told
my weapon is my word?
All these stones
thousands and thousands of themrepresenting the victims
When I close my eyes
I can almost hear their screams
When I think back
and I saw her to the taxi
I never would have thought it would be our final farewell
Such a great regret
She immersed herself
in this history
It was as if she saw herself within this history
and actively used her feelings
to experience
Her book was not written with a pen
It was written with her heart
Uh-huh Yeah Ohnothing
but I have to go because I woke up late today
yeah yeah yeah Okay Okay bye
We met each other in a writer's group
Her book the Thread of the Silkworm was about to come out
she was very excited about that
We just hit it off right away
She was even at that point
very very intense
and just interested in everything
Always asking questions
For her nothing was impossible
If there was an obstacle it was a challenge
It was something to be overcome
maybe something that even represented an opportunity potentially
If the door was closed she would climb in the window
When she was in the book mode
she would just stay focused onsomething forever
she would just get uP at twelve noon
work till three or four in the morning
and start the whole thing over the next day
In the beginning
she really was very happy to get the story out
And those survivors really trusted her very much
So she really did not want to fail them
My father went to wash vegetables
was seen by the Japanese soldiers
They fired three shots and killed my father
He fell to the ground
My mother heard
She came out to look for him
and was hit by a gunshot too
Mama died too
She died in my father's arms
I was just eleven years old
I heard my mother die
and ran out to look
I saw a pool of blood on the ground
Their bodies were all covered with blood
Before I could cry out for my father
the Japanese soldiers shot me once
This arm was hit the bone was broken
My body was burning with blisters
Under my armpit all that was left of my clothes were strips
Blood was coming out of my mouth
I was in between life and death
My grandfather was beaten his head split open
even his brainblood started gushing out
They found my aunt
She was seven months pregnant
They dragged her out to rape her
My poor aunt begged them to have mercy
But no
kept dragging
My aunt cried out "Help me!"
And auntie was then gang-raped by them by the five of them
That night
she started to hemorrhage
The baby went with each drop of blood
and so the baby died
My aunt burned with a high fever that night
She died too
Two of the Japanese soldiers lifted their rifles
and grouped all of us together
They picked people out of the groupwith their rifles
The people they picked
were all the elderly
the women and the children
I was one of the children
Then young men were taken away
The next day
everyone was out in the streets
Asking each other the same question
'Has your son returned yet?"
or"Has your husband returned yet?"
That's what they asked each other
But nobody knew
They had the no answers Nobody returned home
By the pond
the dead were sprawled everywhere
All dead people
Their hands were tied at the back chained together
And they were kneeling
This was so
when the soldiers shot them in the back
They would fall on each other
They were not able to run and jump in the river
We arrived at East Gate Riverside Bridge?
which had been destroyed by
the bombing
It was winter time and the water was shallow
How were we going to cross the river?
This was the only way to get to Shang Xin River
We had to cross the river
Then we saw that there was a huge amount of bodies in the river
forming a path to cross the river
I believe this was created by the Japanese
as they forced groups of Chinese people there
and made this'path'
Wooden boards were laid on top of the corpses
and I walked across the river with my grandmother
On both sides all you could see were heads and fee
heads and feet
and that's how we crossed the river
I remember sometimes
just having a physical reaction to the atrocities
that were on my word processor
On various occasions
I started trembling convulsively
and not being able to shop
it would take some time before I stopped shaking
And also I noticed tremendous hair loss
just patches of hair disappearing
One day I remember vividly
she called
she seems very dark in the mood
I can see she's very unhappy
and depressed sad
I said
Are you sure you really want to continue to write this book?
because as a mother I always worry about her health
And she said " Yes I have to
Even that bad I have to continue "
She said " Look those survivors
no one seems to pay attention to them
I'm the one who has to make this atrocity known to the world
And thinking about what they go through
what I'm going through is nothing
So I have to finish it "
What was really chilling for me
was to discover that many of these atrocities
were committed not by people who were diabolical serial types by nature
but by people who were very ordinary citizens
I still have a problem thinking about it
and talking about it sometimes
The scars for me run pretty deep
because it's really shaken my fundamental belief
that " humans are basically good at heart "
I can never entirely believe that again
For the first three months after joining the Japanese army
we were slapped when we woke up
slapped until we went to bed
slapped when we got up late
slapped if we didn't eat our meals properly
slapped when our behaviours were not acceptable
and slapped when our buttons were off
Thus we were trained to acquire the spirit of soldiers
That was how we were trained
They were treated like dirt
they were the lowest of the low
suddenly here they are in the capital of China
where they are more powerful than the Lords of Creation
It's easy to see
how all those months or a lifetime perhaps
of pent-up frustration
could explode in uncontrollable violence in Nanking
When we entered a village
senior soldiers brought farmers and tied them to trees
We lined up in one vertical line
about ten metres away
facing the farmers
'No 1 charge!"
The first one charged and stabbed the farmer
But the blade has this much width
which doesn't go in with the first stab
It didn't go into the body
and the bayonet slipped in his hand
Only this much went in
The Chinese opened his eyes wide and spit
Then the senior soldier said " Try again "
The soldier tried again
However killing a person is not easy
Then the senior soldier said " Watch me closely I'll show you "
The senior soldier charged
and turned the bayonet by ninety degrees
which made the width of the blade thin enough
to go through the ribs smoothly
He taught us the trick
and we tried with easy success
This was how we got trained to kill men
The Japanese army were
certainly inculcated for violence
and they were taught to believe that
the Chinese were subhuman
When you look at some
of the diaries of Japanese soldiers at the time
you'll see that they refer to the Chinese as ants
or something of less value than pigs or sheep
We used to call the Chinese " Chankoro Chankoro "
and regarded them as an inferior race
We thought Japanese were superior
We didn't think we were doing anything bad
We did what we did for the Emperor
Japan and the Japanese people
Therefore we thought what we were doing was good
It was easy for the Japanese soldier to take Chinese life
because he didn't even value his own life
Next to the emperor
all human life was considered meaningless
I talked with one Japanese soldier
who told me that
he was taught that duty was as heavy as a mountain
and his own life was light as a feather
and that the greatest honour fora Japanese soldier
was to come home dead
She wanted a process
by which people are trained
to see other people are less thanhuman of be revealed
and Iris was cognisant that it's extremelyeasy to do
And she wanted this event recorded
because you don't know who
in some future time in some other country
Reads this book and says " No not me
I'm not gonna let this happen in my country
or in my place or in my town "
People are always arguing about the numbers of dead
They say it's 140 000 or 300 000
but that's not even the point
because what we do know for sure is
many more would have died
if that small group of Westernershad not stayed behind
and set up that 2 5 square-mile safe haven
I realized
this was a story with heroes as well as villains
The most fascinating of all I think was John Rabe
He was the head of the Safety Zone Committee
He was a German businessman and
ironically a Nazi
a Nazi humanitarian
He would go throughout the city wearing his swastika armband
the Japanese actually respected
the Germans more than the Americans
because they had a relationship with Germany at the time
Often he would drive or walk through the city
and he would try to stop atrocities that were in progress
He gave refuge
to over 600 Chinese in his own house
and for days would go sleepless
ever vigilant of the constant threat
of marauding Japanese soldiers looking for women
He and the other Westerners would risk their lives
to collect and bring in food
to the 200 000 in the safety zone
He also constantly petitioned
the Japanese embassy in Nanking
to stop the raping and murdering
Consequently
the people of Nanking called him the Living Buddha
Rabe returned to Germany in February 1938
after the worst of the massacre was over
and then he just vanished
I could never get his story out of my mind
so I decided to find out
what happened to him?
Finally
she located John Rabe's granddaughter
Ursula Reinhardt
and then she wrote to her
Reinhardt told her there's a diary
Iris was so excited
I remember she called me immediately
You know she said
" I not only found John Rabe
and he had a diary! "
I tracked down the decedents of John Rabe in Germany
and learned that he had kept
a 2 000-page diary of the massacre
A diary which on various occasions
the family had actually considered tossing it out
because the contents were too painfulfor them to read?
Ursula told me that
when he returned from Nanking
he went around Berlin giving a series of public lectures
and even sent Adolph Hitler a detailed report
about the slaughter
A few days later
the Gestapo showed up at his house
and Rabe was told
never to talk about Nanking ever again
After the war
because of his Nazi Party membership
the allies would not give him a work permit
So to survive
he sold his treasured Chinese artifacts
and all his possessions
until his family was reduced to living off acorn soup?
A letter from Chinese people arrived
and told him how they adored him
how he had saved Chinese people
and they gathered money
and sent care parcels to John Rabe
Unfortunately
by then Rabe as a very sick man
a few years later
in 1950 he died of a stroke
It's really hard to discredit the Rabe diaries
His evidence is far too powerful
and he can't be discredited anyway
I mean he is a third-party witness towhat happened
He was there on the scene
so how do you deny his reports??
In December of 1937
Japanese troops invaded the city of Nanking China
Now after sixty years
the story of what took place there has been written about
in a new book called the Rape of Nanking
It was written by Iris Chang
and we're pleased
to have her here on this broadcast this evening
thank you
First printing was about 2 500 copies
It turns out a lot of people
especially the oriental the Chinese
want to buy that book
and they just couldn't find the books in the bookstore
Actually the biggest help came from her community
Because they sort of talking to basic books
This is outrageous
And they're Irises Oh beautiful thank you
Iris came along
When we almost lost hope in bringing
the Massacre of Nanking
to the attention of the world
particularly in the Western world
And I immediately offered
to promote Iris' book in Canada
provided that I could buy 2 000 of the books
This chapter of history is so important
to every Chinese people's heart
especially starting from the 80s
The Japanese ultra-nationalists
they start to deny this chapter of history?
deny the atrocities
So they really feel that Iris is
helping them to express
their sense of injustice
their feelings and their thoughts
The 60th anniversary of the Rape of Nanking
we organized a commemorative concert
and every seat was filled
and Iris was surprised at the turnout
They came to talk to Iris
and also to discuss how to bring this knowledge
to the rest of the world?
What happened when Iris' book came out
was that so many other families like mine
who had basically been suffering in silence
like my father had alone and isolated
saw that here was this book that declared
how many hundred of thousands of people
had experienced it
It lent a humanity to what they had suffered?
The reviews started to pour in
and everybody saw this was a major book
A typical book tour lasts two weeks
a great book tour last two months
she did a book tour for over a year
It was unheard of
We kept extending it and extending it and extending it
That's how long the interest sustained itself
There's a much more important story here
than just the horrible ways in which people were massacred
I feel very fortunate that
the Rape of Nanking did become a bestseller
I didn't want this story to just disappear
I didn't want all those thousands of people's lives to
vanish into oblivion
That's why I wrote it
What really bothered me was that
powerful forces out there in Japan
wanted the story to go away
I just felt it was insulting to the victims
and I think that individuals have to fight
to prevent these acts of genocide from happening
and then being forgotten
If you look at the title of her book
The Forgotten Holocaus
that's how people felt
It's a tremendous loss that was forgotten?
As you point out
there were more people killed in Nanking
than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined
and yet we have amnesia about Nanking
why?
I think the Cold War is the main reason
why we have this worldwide amnesia on the subject
After i949
neither the People's Republic of China northe Republic of China in Taiwan
wanted to push the Japanese for reparationsor an apology
because both of them ironically
now needed Japan as an allyagainst each other
and they needed Japan's economic and political support
To this day I think
there was a reluctance on the part of both governments
to broach the subject with Japan?
I think that Iris' book stirred up a hornet's nest here
I think that people from the revisionists' school
want to minimize or deny
Japanese wartime excesses were provoked by it
There's a real range of opinion here
Nanjing has become a very important and powerful symbol
of what Japan did to China
that ranges from total denial
itneverhappened
it's a pure fabrication of Chinese propagandists
to yes lots of bad things happened
but those sorts of things tend to happen in war
to what is often called the massacre school
which are people who actually are doing
excellent research about
what went on in Nanjing and detailing the extent of the atrocities
particularly against non-combatants?
It was in the early'80s
that Japanese right-wing nationalists started to lash out
at those in the massacre school?
Some of those individuals in Japan courageous individuals
have face ostracism death threats
and even assassination attempts
For example a few years ago
the mayor of Nagasaki was shot in the chest
merely for stating his belief that
Emperor Hirohito bore some responsibilityfor World War Two
Katsuich Honda a popular journalist and author
wrote detailed accounts of the atrocities
and because of death threats
has worn a wig and dark glassesin public ever since?
I wrote a series of reports called'Travelling in China'
interviewing survivors whohad memories of Nanjing
That was my main focus
I've received some death threats
not only at work but also at home
even at the elementary school my kids were attending
I felt in danger
so we moved and our address has been unlisted since?
She received some very ugly hate mail
For that reason she kept
her address private
I never even had her private phone number
I e-mailed her on everything
I never had her address
She was concerned about safety
but she certainly wasn't going to stop
And yet there are people in Japan
prominent businessmen politicians academics
so not just the lunatic fringe
who say that the whole thing is a lie
that the massacre never happened
It's incredible
Nanjing
no
ma'am we did not commit any massacre there in 1937
( None? )
That was fabricated
a complete fabrication by the Chinese
( You don't think eyewitness testimonies
Japanese soldiers' diaries and film footage and)
Oh those film footage were made up
By the Nationalist Chinese Propaganda Ministry
Unfortunately
a mountain of evidence on the Nanking Massacre
including thousands of archival materials in four different languages
as well as photographic and motion picture evidence
and widespread news coverage
has not deterred these Japanese extremists
from dismissing it all as propaganda
or forgeries
We may have killed a few thousand
but certainly not in the order of100 000 200 000
or 300 000
Nobody was out there with their calculator
click click click that many people died
that many people were raped
I mean nobody will ever know
so if the debate is always fixated on getting the right number
and you can't say anything
until you get the right number
the debate will never go forward
And I think when people see interviews with survivors
or hear interviews with them
they suddenly realize this did happen
It cannot be denied any longer
We screamed "Don't stab my mother!"
But the Japanese soldier wouldn't listen
My mother was stabbed
and my brother fell on the ground
'Waaahhh!"he cried
The soldier with his bayonet
stabbed him in the buttocks
and flung him far away
I saw him tossed really far
and then drop to the ground with a thud
My baby brother was crying loudly
I ran over
and threw myself on him and said
'Don't cry don't cry I'll protect you"
I laid on top of him
My older sister threw herself
against the Jap crying
"Don't stab my morn "
but he used his bayonet to stab my sister
stabbed my sister too
The soldier started to stab
my little brothers
Every one one after another was stabbed to death by him
I screamed and cried out loudly
'Don't stab my mama! Don't stab my mama!"
I screamed for my brothers to leave
but they couldn't
In the end I fainted?
I went to the pile of corpses
there was blood everywhere
I stepped over the dead corpses
I walked toward the sounds of crying
And I saw both sides were full of dead bodies
And my baby brother was crawling forward?
I lifted him up and I saw blood on his body
dripping to the ground turning into ice
because that day was especially cold
I carefully brought him
to mama
and placed him at mama's side
When my mama saw my brother she struggled
to tear open her clothes
so she could nurse my brother
My brother crawled to mama
and suckled hungrily
My little brother was just a baby
he only knew to feed
While he was nursing
when mama breathed
her wounds bubbled with blood
When I saw that it made me very sad
So then I shook with all my might
crying "Mama wake up wake up"
I shook her but she wouldn't wake up anymore
They were trained
( How do you mean " trained "? )
Oh by the Chinese authority to say those lines
(They were given these stories?)
Yes
looked into the survivors' eyes
I heard their stories
For people to say they've made it all up
that's just unbelievable
The Japanese
should listen to their own soldiers
and they should look into the eyes
of the survivors themselves
because this mindset is exactly
what led to the massacre in the first place?
She was arguing she would get angry
get emotional
Not because of a personal attack
but because they deny
Why people don't want to face the truth?
The problem is
that the conservative political elite
more or less tries to promote a collective amnesia
and so they have been whitewashing this history for decades
Japan needs to make a dramatic gesture
that shows that it takes responsibility for what happened
acknowledges the extent of those atrocities
and is committed to continue to teach about those
to make sure that this is not forgotten
And my feeling is the revisionists are
shooting themselves in the foot
The more that they try to deny minimize
shift responsibility
the more of a backlash they're attracting
And this isn't just from overseas
it's from within Japan as well
In recent years
a multiethnic grassroots movement has emerged internationally
to combat these efforts to rewrite history
a movement that includes not only the Chinese
the Koreans the Filipinos
leading members of the Jewish community
but also many Japanese-Americans
Japanese-Canadians
and Japanese nationalists
who recognize that human rights issues
transcend those of nationality and ethnicity
As you can feel here in Nanjing
the Japanese committed a lot of crimes
Crimes come with responsibility
It's only common sense
to offer apologies and reparations directly
to those who suffered a great loss
But at the same time it is also important for Japanese to do so
because then we would have an opportunity
to truly learn and understand our own history
Having a good understanding
of our own past of history
would give us better direction
on how we should live in the future
History teaches us lessons
I hope the Japanese government can admit to their mistakes
admit that the invasion was wrong
can bow their head to the people
can apologize to the people and acknowledge their crimes
Only then will my heart be at peace
Otherwise my heart will never be at peace
Her next book was the Chinese in America
She told me numerous times
she considered that sort of
a holiday project
a vacation after all of
the atrocities of Nanking
Emotionally it was a little bit
easier on her
so I think on several levels she felt more ready
to have the family
and also that it was just time
She was over the moon
when Christopher came And she seemed to me
throughout the period of the Rape of Nanking
and well into the period of the Chinese in America
focused on the future
thinking about new projects
happy with her family life
happy with the increasing visibility
of the Chinese-American organizationsthat she cared about greatly
We the people and the fighting forces of the United States
in our own blood our unremitting effort?
Research for my fourth book
started with an oral history project on Bataan POWs
It was an American veteran who wrote
and asked me to tell their stories
The same day the Japanese bombedPearl Harbour
they also attacked the Philippines
and about 10 000 U S
and 70 000 Filipino soldiers were forced to surrender
and that led to what became known as the
Bataan Death March
When we do these interviews and talk to these veterans
it's difficult
It's difficult to hear their stories
and to read the accounts of what these men went through
and what they experienced
You walk away with these
thoughts sort of burdening you
I could only imagine that after
11 months of again
dealing with this topic
and hearing these stories over and over that
that must have been a tremendous weight
a tremendous emotional burden
I think she took it on because
she believed the story needed to be told
She saw herself as a facilitator for those
who had been muted by others
those in authority by those who had
an interest in not hearing these stories be told
And justice for all means justice for all
she was not looking for justice for Chinese
or for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre
She was looking for justice for all
Her experience with what she learned writing the Rape of Nanking
she was afraid of concentrated power in government
and so some of the things that the Bush Administration was doing
just completely set her off
I mean she would react very strongly to that
I lay awake at night
with the voices of the Bataan survivors
going round and round in my head
just like Nanking
The voices are different
the details are different
the language is different
but the story is the same
But these men
just like the people in Nanking poured their hearts out to me
somebody had to listen to record
and validate their experience by making it public
I couldn't turn away
just like I couldn't turn away before
And I also think it's important to remember these stories
to remind us that
no matter how civilized we think we are
it doesn't take much for us to get to the point
where we can massacre each other without a second thought
And in the end I'm left with one question
When will the madness end?
And sometimes she didn't tell us as much
she just keep to herself working all the time
At that time
she was complaining that she couldn't eat
she couldn't sleep
It seemed like it was worse than it had ever been before
We noticed that
she is very exhausted
and that's how I feel her health go down
And she couldn't eat very well
she didn't have much appetite
and couldn't sleep well
of course we are very concerned ?
She had a baby
she already had a fourth book to write
and all the other things you know
And somehow it just was too much for her
She was going on a research tour
and she was getting ready for that
She wasn't sleeping during the day
She was up all day and she was up all night
and she was up all day and she was all up night
so she was probably up for three or four days straight
before she went on the trip
She felt she just had to get out there
and interview as many of these survivors as she could
as quickly as possible
that time was against them
and against her
One Monday I checked
my messages on the voice mail
and there was a call that said " It's me "
no name but I knew who it was
Help I'm in Kentucky at this number
Help me
And I called the number and it was a hotel
and they told me was that Iris had checked out
She physically broke down in August
when during the trip she was
interviewing survivors of the Bataan Death March
It's only three month
it happened very fast
Yes we really had a lot of questions
we couldn't answer
I was up there twice after her collapse in Kentucky
and both times she was very flat
I think her drive
her optimism
all of those defining characteristics
it was like she was suddenly flat whereas before
she was just a vibrant ball of energy?
After she had her breakdown she was depressed
and then the medicine that she was given
made her even more sluggish
They thought it would be a long long time
before she was back to normal
Or probably never back to normal
And she knew she wasn't herself you know
On some level she did know that
And something had profoundly changed for her?
She was very sad and very frightened
She was I felt cognizant
very cognizant of losing the person she once was
And that Iris Chang was gone and would never come back
No medicine no therapy was ever gonna bring it back
And she knew it
After she died it seems part of me die too
But I try to think more positively now because
she died so young
I think what we can do is
to continue her unfinished work and her dream?
You are going to find
that we live in a world
in which international law
has much less to do with actual justice
than international politics and money
a world in which those who have power
often believe that they are above the truth
My greatest hope is that
a few of you in this auditorium today
will actually serve as
crusaders for truth beauty and justice in the future
People like that are needed
to create a better world for the next generation of humankind
and to ensure the survival of our civilization
Please believe in the power of one
one person can make an enormous difference in this world
one person
actually just one idea
can start a war or end one
You as one individual
can change millions of lives so think big
Do not limit your vision
and do not ever compromise your dreams or ideals?
I gave voice to the voiceless
now I'm silencing my own
What I've left behind remember
in you my spirit lives on
Find my light
pass it on
Find my light
pass it on