The Tears of Nanjing

 A colleague (and friend) lost his grandmother early in the summer.  She was 94 years old.  At one point, I suggested to my friend that his grandmother had seen a lot of changes over the course of her 94 years.  He told me a few stories.

She was born in 1917 in a small town a few miles away from Nanjing.  Her family was prosperous and in her teenage years she was matched with the eldest son of the most prosperous family in town.  They married and moved into his family's compound.  Her husband, my friend's grandfather, was a well-educated man who managed the many business interests of the family.  They lived in the largest house in town.  They lived well and had children, to whom they expected to pass on the family fortunes.

 When she was 20 years old, the Japanese invaded Southeastern China.  Japan had carved off Manchuria, Taiwan, and other distant territories years before she was born.  But this was an invasion of the heartland.  When Shanghai was captured in 1937, it was obvious that the Japanese goal was to take the capitol of Nanjing and force the surrender of the entire country.

Her husband decided that there was danger in being so close to Nanjing and the battle that was obviously coming.  So they packed what possessions they could and fled to the West of China.  They would come back when the war was over.

 In 1939 they came back to their village.  At that time, any rational person would have agreed that the war was over.  The Republic of China still existed, but there was little hope that it could ever drive the Japanese from their new possessions.  And there was no hope that anyone else would come to help China.  This was long before December, 1941.  Japan had no more enemies.

 When they returned to their home village, they found that their family house had been commandeered as a military headquarters.  So they moved in with other family members and started to rebuild their lives under the new government of the occupation.  Though these were difficult times and they had lost nearly everything, they still considered themselves lucky.  They were alive.

 The city of Nanjing fell to the Japanese on December 13, 1937.  The Nanjing massacres started on that day and continued for another 6 weeks.

 The Memorial to the Victims is located on the Southeast side of Nanjing.  On the day we visited it was drizzling rain, which made all the statues look like they were crying.  

 All wars are horrible, but the memorial tells a story of exceptional horrors.  Men rounded up and machined gunned by the thousands.  Contests between sword-carrying soldiers to see who could behead the most people and the fastest.  Nails driven into the skulls of people. 

 The memorial is divided into several sections.  The first is a museum which chronicles the history of before, during, and after the fall of Nanjing.  There are photos.  There are stories from people who survived.  The details make you wince.

The second section is the mass gravesite and an excavation of a burial pit.  You see the bones of people jumbled together, positioned the same as when they were tossed into the pit some 70 years ago.  Some skeletons are numbered to point out the saddest examples of the beheaded and the nailed and the mutilated and the young and the old.  It's like you are in the jury and being shown the gruesome photos of the bodies in a murder trial.  And I suppose that is the intent.  It is meant to shock....to say "let no one deny that this really happened".

The last section is a set monuments to honor the dead and to hope for atonement and peace.  This last section is nice.

 The memorial covers several acres.  Statues and other works of art are placed on the pathways between the buildings and in the courtyards near the entrance.

 There are only two photos for which I want to give a little more explanation.  One is a photo of the colorful paper cranes.  (count four photos up from this paragraph).  There is an entire wall covered with these cranes, which I believe are made and sent by children in Japan.  The other is the photo below, which shows the binders that document the victims.  In this hall they are still soliciting people to identify relatives or friends that disappeared at the time of the massacres.  If researchers verify that a new victim is identified, then they will add the name to the "wall of names" just outside the mass burial place.